Hezbollah says it hit Ashdod naval base and Tel Aviv; three wounded 

Hezbollah says it targeted the Ashdod naval base in southern Israel “for the first time”, adding that it conducted an operation against a “military target” in Tel Aviv using advanced missiles and strike drones.

The Israeli military reported air raid sirens in central and northern areas, including the Tel Aviv suburbs. The military said it intercepted a number of the projectiles fired at northern Israel, and added that 250 projectiles had been fired from Lebanon.

Later on, Israeli army radio reported that ‘340 missiles’ had launched from Lebanon.

The attacks wounded at least 11 people, including a man in a “moderate to serious” condition, according to medical agencies.

They come a day after Israel killed at least 29 people in a strike in central Beirut. At least 66 others were wounded, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.

Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned it as an assault on US-led ceasefire efforts, calling it a “direct, bloody message rejecting all efforts and ongoing contacts” to end the war.

“(Israel is) again writing in Lebanese blood a brazen rejection of the solution that is being discussed,” a statement from his office read.

Meanwhile, the European Union’s top diplomat called for more pressure on both Israel and Hezbollah to reach a deal, saying one was “pending with a final agreement from the Israeli government”.

“We see only one possible way ahead: an immediate ceasefire and the full implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701,” Borrell said after his meeting with Mikati and Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally who has been mediating with the group.

Borrell said the EU is ready to allocate 200 million euros ($208m) to assist the Lebanese military, which would deploy additional forces to the south.

The emerging agreement would pave the way for the withdrawal of Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops from southern Lebanon below the Litani River in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution (1701) that ended the 2006 war. Lebanese troops would patrol the area, with the presence of UN peacekeepers.

The Biden administration has spent months trying to broker a ceasefire, and US envoy Amos Hochstein was back in the region last week.

In southern Lebanon, the Lebanese army said an Israeli strike on a post killed a soldier.

“One soldier was martyred, and 18 others were injured, including some with severe wounds, as a result of an Israeli attack targeting a Lebanese army centre in al-Amriyeh,” the army said in a statement.

It was the latest in a series of Israeli attacks that have killed more than 40 Lebanese troops, even as the military has largely kept to the sidelines in Israel’s war on Hezbollah.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has said previous attacks on Lebanese troops were accidental and that they are not a target of its campaign against Hezbollah.

After nearly a year of limited cross-border exchanges of fire, in which Lebanon’s Hezbollah said it was acting in support of Hamas in Gaza, Israel escalated air attacks on Lebanon on September 23, sending ground troops to southern Lebanon a week later. Hezbollah said it would stop its attacks if Israel ceased fire in Gaza, which has been turned into a wasteland after 13 months of nonstop Israeli bombardment.

Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon, according to the ministry. The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.

On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by bombardments in northern Israel and in battle following Israel’s ground invasion in early October. About 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country’s north since October 7, 2023.