BEIRUT: Urgent calls for foreign nationals to leave Lebanon grew on Sunday after France warned of an “extremely volatile” situation as Iran and its allies prepared to respond to high-profile killings blamed on Israel.
Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, which has clashed with Israeli forces almost daily since the Gaza war began in October, announced its fighters had fired a barrage of rockets into northern Israel overnight.
The Israeli military said 30 missiles were fired from Lebanon and most of them were intercepted.
With Israel on high alert and anticipating a major military operation by armed groups including the Tehran-linked Hezbollah and Hamas, medics and police said two people were killed in a stabbing in a Tel Aviv suburb on Sunday.
The attacker, a Palestinian from the occupied West Bank, was “neutralized” by police and taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Israeli forces meanwhile continued to bombard the Gaza Strip, with witnesses and officials in the besieged Hamas-ruled territory saying there was no end to the nearly 10-month Israeli offensive on Gaza.
France, Canada and Jordan were among the latest governments to issue calls for their citizens to leave Lebanon.
In an “extremely volatile security context,” French citizens were “immediately urged” not to travel to Lebanon and those already in the country to “make arrangements to leave as soon as possible,” the Paris foreign ministry said. said
The United States and the United Kingdom have issued similar warnings.
Several Western airlines have suspended flights to the region.
Qatar Airways on Sunday said “in light of recent developments in Lebanon,” the Doha-Beirut route will “operate exclusively during daylight hours” until at least Monday.
The killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday, hours after Israel killed Hezbollah's military chief in Beirut, has prompted vows of retaliation from Iran and the so-called “axis of resistance” of Tehran-backed armed groups.
Israel, which has blamed Hamas, Iran and others for the attack that killed Haniyeh, has not directly commented.
At least 39,550 people have been killed in Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip, according to the territory's health ministry.
Haniyeh, Hamas's political chief, was the group's chief negotiator in efforts to end the war.
His killing raised questions about the continued viability of efforts by Qatari, Egyptian and US mediators for a cease-fire and exchange of hostages and prisoners.
Fighting continued on Sunday in Gaza.
The Palestinian Red Crescent says it has recovered eight bodies from a residential building in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza following Israeli airstrikes.
Doctors at Al-Aqsa Martyr Hospital in central Gaza told displaced Palestinians at the medical complex that an Israeli drone attack on a tent house killed at least five people and wounded 16, and a separate attack on a nearby house in the same area killed three people.
On Saturday, at least 17 people were killed in an Israeli attack on a school that had been turned into a shelter for displaced people, the Civil Defense Agency said. Israel claims the facility is used by rebels.
An AFP correspondent reported Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire in and around Gaza City on Sunday morning, while witnesses said there was more shelling, gunfire and at least two airstrikes in the southern part of the territory.
The Israeli military said its air force had struck “about 50 terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip” in the past 24 hours.
Israel's ally the United States has said it will move warships and fighter jets to the region to protect American personnel and defend Israel.
Analysts told AFP that joint but measured action from Iran and its allies is likely, while Tehran expects Hezbollah to strike deeper inside Israel and no longer be limited to military targets.
US President Joe Biden, asked by reporters if he would stand by Iran, said, “I hope so. I don't know.”
On Sunday, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi will travel to Tehran to meet Iran's foreign minister, his ministry said.
Haniyeh's killing “has brought the Middle East to its moment of greatest danger in years,” the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank said in a report released on Saturday.
“The risk of a spiraling conflagration is high,” with the potential for a miscalculation to trigger war “unhindered… probably greater now than it was in April,” it added.
On April 13, Iran launched its first direct attack on Israeli soil, firing a barrage of drones and missiles — most of which were intercepted — after a strike killed a Revolutionary Guardsman at Tehran's consulate in Damascus.
The ICG said securing a “long overdue ceasefire” in Gaza was the “best way to meaningfully reduce tensions in the region”.
Hamas officials but also some analysts and protesters in Israel have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prolonging the war to protect his ruling hard-right coalition.
On Sunday, Netanyahu told his cabinet he was “doing everything” to return the hostages and was prepared to “go a long way” to do so.
