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Lebanon’s Hezbollah launched more than 200 rockets and drones at Israeli army positions on Thursday, escalating tensions between the two adversaries as the Israel-Hamas war rages in Gaza.
After months of deadlock in Gaza ceasefire efforts, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to send a delegation for talks aimed at securing the release of hostages seized in Hamas’s October 7 attack, which sparked the war.
A source familiar with the talks said an Israeli delegation led by spy chief David Barnea was travelling to Doha for discussions with the Qatari prime minister “aiming to bring the parties closer to a deal in Gaza”.
The United States welcomed the developments, which came after a phone call between Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden, following Hamas’s indication it had “ideas” on halting the nearly nine-month conflict.
It was described as a “pretty significant opening” by a senior US official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Biden administration has waged a diplomatic offensive to persuade Hamas to accept a ceasefire plan laid out by the president whose support for Israel has alienated parts of his support base ahead of an election in November.
Israel launched a military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7, in response to an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist militant group on its territory.
The next day Hezbollah, in support of its ally Hamas, opened a front on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, and the two sides have since exchanged near-daily cross-border fire.
Hezbollah said it fired more than 200 rockets and “explosive drones” at army positions in northern Israel and the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights in retaliation for an Israeli strike that killed one of the Iran-backed group’s commanders.
Air raid sirens blared across northern Israel in the morning, and an AFP correspondent witnessed rockets crossing the frontier that were mostly intercepted by Israeli air defences but sparked wildfires.
