Israel’s military struck a number of Hezbollah targets deep inside Lebanon on Sunday. But the response so far has stopped short of the fierce retaliation Netanyahu pledged after the strike on a soccer field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday. It was the deadliest single attack on Israel since Hamas’s Oct. 7 rampage. The Israel Defense Forces released a list on Sunday of victims aged 10-16.
The militant group Hezbollah, backed by Iran, has denied any connection to the attack, which followed months of cross-border skirmishes between Israel’s military and Hezbollah.
In a sign of the escalating regional tensions, Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, hit back at vague suggestions Sunday from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Turkey could enter Israel as it had done in the past in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, a region in Azerbaijan.
Erdogan did not provide any more detail in his remarks, which were made in a televised address in his hometown, according to Reuters. Turkey has vigorously criticized Israeli military operations in Gaza.
Here’s what else to know
Lebanon’s main airline, Middle East Airlines, rescheduled flights to and from the capital of Beirut on Sunday and Monday, citing “technical reasons related to the distribution of insurance risks.” Among the departures affected by the delays were Monday flights to Cairo; Nice, France; and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. German airline Lufthansa announced it was suspending flights to Beirut through Tuesday, Reuters reported.
At least 39,324 people have been killed and 90,830 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry, which is run by Hamas, does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, including more than 300 soldiers, and says 329 soldiers have been killed since the launch of its military operation in Gaza.
