Hezbollah steps up attacks, IDF says, fueling fears of wider conflict

JERUSALEM — Fears mounted Sunday that the Israel-Gaza war could swell into a wider conflict amid rising cross-border attacks on Israel’s north from Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and expanding Israeli airstrikes across the region.

Syria’s state news agency said Israel struck the Damascus and Aleppo international airports in early-morning attacks, damaging runways. In the West Bank, a rare Israeli airstrike hit a mosque, which the military said had been used as a command center for Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants.

The potential for escalation remained particularly high along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where the Israeli military continued to evacuate towns on Sunday in the face of “more and more attacks” from Hezbollah, said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces.

About 100,000 Israelis have been evacuated nationwide, an Israeli government spokesperson said Sunday, and another 100,000 have moved voluntarily.

During a visit to soldiers in northern Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hezbollah that it would be making “the mistake of its life” if it chose to enter the conflict. “We will cripple it with unimaginable force,” he continued, saying the result would be “devastating” for Lebanon.

Israel has fought two wars with Lebanon over the past four decades — the most recent in 2006 — and tensions have simmered for years with Hezbollah, which the United States and others have designated a terrorist organization. Israeli authorities fear the group has been emboldened by the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people.

Antitank missiles were fired from Lebanon into three areas in Israel, the IDF said Sunday; Israeli forces responded with tank and artillery fire and struck a Hezbollah observation post. Hezbollah did not claim responsibility for the attack.

The IDF accused the militant group of trying to draw return fire from Israeli forces that could harm U.N. peacekeepers who are stationed along the border. “The way it is looking now, Hezbollah is aggressing — and it is dragging Lebanon into a war that it will gain nothing from,” Conricus said.

Those concerns were echoed Sunday by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. “What we’re seeing is a prospect of a significant escalation of attacks on our troops and our people throughout the region,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.” “Because of that, we will do what’s necessary to ensure our troops are in a good position, they’re protected and we have the ability to respond.”

On Saturday, Austin announced that the United States will send additional air defense systems to locations throughout the Middle East and transfer the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf. The moves come after “detailed discussions with President Biden on recent escalations by Iran and its proxy forces” across the region, Austin said in a statement.

The Pentagon reported several drone attacks on U.S. military positions in Iraq and Syria last week, causing minor injuries. On Sunday, the State Department said it had ordered non-emergency personnel in Iraq to leave the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the U.S. Consulate in Irbil amid threats of terrorism, kidnapping and civil unrest.

Late Sunday, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut told American citizens who wish to depart Lebanon that they “should leave now, due to the unpredictable security situation.”

Adding to the sense of regional unease, the IDF said Sunday that one of its tanks accidentally fired at an Egyptian border post near the Kerem Shalom crossing. Egypt’s military confirmed the incident, saying it caused minor injuries to border watchmen. The cross-border fire, even if unintended, appeared likely to generate substantial concern in Cairo, which is determined to protect its border with Gaza and avoid being drawn into hostilities.

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