BEIRUT: Urgent calls for foreigners to leave Lebanon rose on Sunday as France warned of an “extremely unstable” situation as Iran and its allies prepared to respond to high-profile killings blamed on Israel.
Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, which has exchanged fire with Israeli forces almost daily since the Gaza war began in October, said its fighters had fired a volley of rockets into northern Israel overnight.
The Israeli military said 30 projectiles were launched from Lebanon, most of which were destroyed.
Two people were killed in a knife attack on the outskirts of Tel Aviv on Sunday, medics and police said, with Israel on high alert and anticipating that armed groups aligned with Tehran, including Hezbollah and Hamas, are on the alert.
The assailant, who is a Palestinian from the occupied West Bank, was neutralized by the police and taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces continued to bombard the Gaza Strip, with no end in sight to Israel's ten-month incursion into Gaza, witnesses and officials in the Hamas-controlled area said.
France, Canada and Jordan were among the last governments that demanded the withdrawal of their citizens from Lebanon.
In a highly volatile security environment, French nationals have been asked “immediately” to refrain from traveling to Lebanon, and those already in the country “are now making arrangements to leave whatever the situation may be,” the foreign ministry said in Paris. Do it faster.” said.
The US and UK have issued similar warnings.
Several western airlines have suspended their flights to the region.
Qatar Airways announced on Sunday that “due to recent developments in Lebanon”, the Doha-Beirut route will operate “exclusively during daytime hours” until at least Monday.
The killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday, hours after the assassination of Hezbollah's military commander in Beirut by Israel, sparked the promise of revenge against Iran and the so-called “axis of resistance” of armed groups supported by Tehran.
Israel, which is accused by Hamas, Iran and others of carrying out the attack that killed Haniyeh, has not directly commented on it.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip has left at least 39,550 dead.
Haniyeh, the political head of Hamas, was the group's main negotiator in trying to end the war.
His killing raised questions about continued efforts by Qatari, Egyptian and American mediators to broker a ceasefire and exchange of hostages and prisoners.
In Gaza, the fighting continued on Sunday.
The Palestinian Red Crescent announced that eight bodies were recovered from a residential building in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza after an Israeli airstrike.
Doctors at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza said that at least five people were killed and 16 injured in an Israeli drone attack on tents housing Palestinian refugees in the medical complex, and a separate attack on a nearby house in the same area left three dead.
At least 17 people were killed in an Israeli attack on a school turned into a refugee shelter on Saturday, the Civil Defense Agency said. Israel claims that the facility was used by militants.
An AFP correspondent reported Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling in and around Gaza City early Sunday, while witnesses said shelling, more gunfire and at least two airstrikes took place south of the area.
The Israeli army announced that its air force had targeted “almost 50 terrorist targets throughout the Gaza Strip” in the past 24 hours.
Israel's ally, the United States, has said it will move warships and fighter jets to the region to protect American personnel and defend Israel.
Analysts told AFP that joint but measured action by Iran and its allies was likely, while Tehran said it expected Hezbollah to attack deep into Israel and no longer be limited to military targets.
When asked by reporters if he thinks Iran will step down from power, US President Joe Biden said: “I hope so. I do not know.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Jordan announced that Ayman Safadi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Jordan, will travel to Tehran on Sunday to meet his Iranian counterpart.
The International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank said in a report published on Saturday that Haniyeh's killing “brings the Middle East to its greatest danger in recent years.”
“The risk of a spiraling conflagration is high,” it added, with the possibility of a miscalculation leading to “no-holds-barred” war … probably greater now than in April.
On April 13, Iran launched its first direct attack on Israeli soil, firing a barrage of drones and missiles — most of which were intercepted — after the IRGC attacked Tehran's consulate in Damascus.
The ICG stated that securing a “long-term ceasefire” in Gaza is “the best way to meaningfully reduce tensions in the region.”
Hamas officials, as well as some analysts and protesters in Israel, have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prolonging the war to protect the ruling far-right coalition.
On Sunday, Netanyahu told his cabinet that he was “doing everything” to get the hostages back and was prepared to “go a long way.”
