The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah fired more than 100 rockets into northern Israel on Tuesday morning, according to Israel’s military. It was one of the heaviest barrages in the months of cross-border strikes that have fed fears that the war in Gaza could expand to another front.
It was not immediately clear how many of the rockets landed or were intercepted by Israeli air defenses. Israel’s military said its fighter jets had retaliated by striking a number of sites linked to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In a statement, Hezbollah said it had launched the volley in response to Israeli military strikes on Monday in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and as a show of support for Palestinians in Gaza.
The group is a key ally of Hamas, whose Oct. 7 attacks on Israel led to the war in Gaza. On Tuesday, Hezbollah said that its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, had met with top Hamas officials to discuss “the ongoing negotiations to achieve a cease-fire in Gaza and fulfill the resistance’s conditions.”
One of those officials was Khalil al-Hayya, who led Hamas’s delegation at recent cease-fire talks in Cairo. The United States, Egypt and Qatar had been pushing to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas before the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, on Monday, but the negotiations stalled.
Since Israel’s bombardment of Gaza began, Hezbollah has been firing rockets into northern Israel on a near-daily basis. The Israeli military regularly responds with strikes against Hezbollah-linked targets inside Lebanon.
Both Hezbollah and Hamas are backed by Iran, and the clashes along Israel’s border with Lebanon have raised concerns that the war in Gaza could erupt into a wider regional conflict.
The violence has displaced about 80,000 Israelis from areas near the border with Lebanon; a similar number of Lebanese have fled their homes on the other side.
Israeli leaders have said that there are only two options for restoring calm in the conflict with Hezbollah: a diplomatic agreement that moves the militant group’s forces farther from the border or, failing that, a major military offensive aimed at achieving the same goal.
Euan Ward and Adam Sella contributed reporting.