ISRAEL (AP) – Hundreds of rockets were fired from Lebanon toward northern Israel on Wednesday, hours after Israeli airstrikes killed a Hezbollah militant commander — the most senior member of the group killed since fighting began eight months ago. The Israeli military said that about 215 projectiles were detected, of which some were intercepted, and that several fires were caused by the strikes.
The death of Taleb Sami Abdullah, 55, who was known within Hezbollah as Hajj Abu Taleb, came amid escalating clashes across the Lebanon-Israel border. Hezbollah has been striking deeper inside Israel and introducing new and more advanced weaponry, while Israeli airstrikes have struck deep inside Lebanon.
The group did not give details on the location and circumstances of his death, but identified him as a “martyr on the road to Jerusalem,” the term it uses for those killed in the current conflict with Israel. Hezbollah published a photo of Abdullah alongside Wissam al-Tawil, another senior commander killed in an Israeli strike in January.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on Abdullah’s death.
Cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has intensified in the past month, as Israel launched its offensive into the key southern Gaza city of Rafah. Hezbollah has also stepped up its attacks, striking deeper inside Israel and introduced new and more advanced weaponry.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that mediators would keep trying to close an elusive cease-fire deal after Hamas requested numerous changes to a U.S.-backed proposal, some of which he said were “workable” and some not.
The Palestinian militant group says the “amendments” aim to guarantee a permanent cease-fire and complete Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza. The cease-fire proposal announced by U.S. President Joe Biden includes those provisions, but Hamas has expressed wariness whether Israel will implement the terms.
Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 37,100 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. Palestinians are facing widespread hunger because the war has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and other supplies. UN agencies say over 1 million in Gaza could experience the highest level of starvation by mid-July.
Israel launched the war after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250. Meanwhile, for Israel, the most successful hostage rescue so far brought nationwide elation and removed some of the stain from the army’s unprecedented collapse on Oct. 7, when Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people and took approximately 250 others hostage.
For Palestinians, however, the rescue marked a day of horror. The operation sent hundreds of dead and wounded flooding into already beleaguered hospitals. Palestinian health officials say at least 274 Palestinians, including dozens of women and children, were killed in the operation.
About 120 hostages remain in Gaza, with 43 pronounced dead. Those believed to still be alive include about 15 women, two children under age 5 and two men in their 80s.
Cease-fire negotiations have been at an impasse for months.
— AP writer Bassem Mroue contributed.
