Israel’s prime minister vowed to strike back at aggressors as tensions in the Middle East intensified yesterday.
Benjamin Netanyahu warned, ‘Whoever harms us, we will harm them’ after Israel exchanged fire with militant group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a series of pre-dawn airstrikes, targeting Hezbollah rocket launchers, following information that the Iranian-backed terror organisation planned to take out key Israeli intelligence bases.
Hezbollah then launched more than 300 rockets, missiles and drones targeting military facilities in northern Israel – aggression it chillingly described as ‘phase one’ of a multi-stage attack.
It said it was acting in response to the killing of Fouad Shukur, its acting chief of staff, in an airstrike in Beirut last month.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he had spoken to Israeli minister for strategic affairs Ron Dermer and ‘reiterated the UK’s support for Israel’s security, the importance of restraint, the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all hostages’.
Mr Lammy, who has been heavily involved in Western diplomatic efforts to secure an end to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, said: ‘Further escalation in the Middle East must be avoided at all costs.’
Israeli sources said the pre-emptive strike ‘prevented damage and possibly serious losses’ of life.
One told the Mail: ‘The intent of Hezbollah was to target intelligence bases such as the Mossad headquarters. They were supposed to strike with precision missiles. The pre-emptive attack of the Israeli Air Force destroyed the Hezbollah response.’ A second source added: ‘We have no desire for a regional war at the moment, we want to contain the attack as much as possible, however we will take every measure to protect Israel’s citizens.’
But Mr Netanyahu warned further violence would be met with a similar response. He said: ‘The IDF has eliminated thousands of rockets that were aimed at northern Israel. It is thwarting many other threats and is taking very strong action – both defensively and offensively.
‘We are determined to do everything to defend our country, to return the residents of the north securely to their homes and to continue upholding a simple rule: Whoever harms us – we will harm them.’
And in a further warning, directed at Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah and the Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, he added: ‘Nasrallah in Beirut, and Khamenei in Tehran need to know this is another step on the way to changing the situation in the north and returning our citizens safely to their homes.
‘And I repeat: This is not the end of the story.’
In a televised address, Nasrallah said that the group had been able to carry out its attack ‘as planned’, denying statements by the Israeli military that its pre-emptive strikes had stopped a wider attack.
He said officials would assess the impact of its rocket and drone attack before determining whether it would carry out further operations.
Nasrallah said the group had intentionally refrained from targeting civilians or public infrastructure, including Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.
In a televised address, he said: ‘If the result is not enough, then we retain the right to respond another time.’
It comes barely a fortnight after Sir Keir Starmer urged the new Iranian president to refrain from attacking Israel.
In the first contact between a UK prime minister and their Iranian counterpart since March 2021, Sir Keir warned Masoud Pezeshkian of ‘a serious risk of miscalculation’. A No 10 spokesman said Sir Keir ‘called on Iran to refrain from attacking Israel, adding that war was not in anyone’s interests’.
Mr Pezeshkian, who has been in office for a month, is considered a reformist, but vowed to make Israel ‘regret’ an air strike on Tehran that killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Yesterday’s offensive means Hezbollah have fired more than 7,000 rockets at Israel since it decided to support Hamas’s October 7 atrocities.
The fresh attacks came as high-level talks between Israel and Hamas continue in Egypt, aimed at brokering a truce.
Last night Hamas said it rejected unspecified new Israeli conditions for a ceasefire and said talk of an imminent deal was false.