Israel and Hezbollah launch new attacks after deadly day in Lebanon

Israel struck Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the Iran-backed group attacked military facilities in northern Israel on Tuesday, increasing fears of a full-blown conflict after Lebanon suffered its deadliest day in decades.

Israel's military said it hit dozens of Hezbollah targets overnight, a day after carrying out airstrikes against Hezbollah. Lebanon's health ministry said at least 558 people had been killed in Monday's strikes, including 50 children and 94 women, with 1,835 wounded.

"In the last hour, warplanes bombed Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, including missile launchers, military buildings, and buildings where weapons were stored," Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee posted on X.

Beirut was not spared for a second straight day. An Israeli airstrike targeted a Hezbollah commander in the capital's southern suburbs, two security sources in Lebanon said. The sources declined to identify who had been targeted in the strike and said his fate was unknown.

The Israeli military said it had carried out a targeted strike in Beirut, but gave no details.

The airstrike hit a building in the usually busy Ghobeiry neighbourhood. One of the security sources shared a photo showing damage to the top floor of the five-storey building.

Hezbollah said it targeted several Israeli military targets overnight, including an explosives factory 60 kilometres into Israel, which it attacked with Fadi rockets around 4 a.m. local time. It said it had also attacked the Megiddo airfield near the northern Israeli town of Afula three separate times.

After almost a year of war against Hamas in Gaza on its southern border, Israel is shifting its focus to the northern frontier, where Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.

Some Lebanese hospitals are overwhelmed by the number of wounded, a World Health Organization official in Lebanon said, and Haifa's main hospital has moved operations to an underground facility after the Israeli city was attacked on Monday.

"We're looking at tens of thousands [of displaced in Lebanon], but we expect that those figures will start to rise," said the UN refugee agency's spokesperson, Matthew Saltmarsh. "The situation is extremely alarming."

The fighting has raised fears that the United States, Israel's close ally, and regional power Iran, which has proxies across the Middle East — Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis and armed groups in Iraq — will be sucked into a wider war.

Maj.-Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, said a "small number of additional U.S. military personnel" will be sent to the region, where there are currently about 40,000 American troops stationed at various bases. The Pentagon declined to specify the precise number or mission of the deployed forces.

The strikes have piled pressure on Hezbollah, which last week suffered heavy losses when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded in the worst security breach in its history.

The operation was widely attributed to Israel, which has not confirmed or denied responsibility.