Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Tyre, southern Lebanon. /Aziz Taher/Reuters
Israel struck Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and attacked military facilities in northern Israel on Tuesday, increasing fears of a full-blown conflict after Lebanon suffered its deadliest day in decades.
Israel's military said it hit dozens of Hezbollah targets overnight, a day after carrying out airstrikes against the armed group which Lebanon says killed 558 people, 50 of them children, and sent tens of thousands fleeing for safety.
Hezbollah said it targeted several Israeli military targets overnight including an explosives factory 60 km (37 miles) into Israel, which it attacked with Fadi rockets around 4 a.m. (0100 GMT). It said it had also attacked the Megiddo airfield near the northern Israeli town of Afula three separate times.
After almost a year of conflict against Hamas in Gaza on its southern border, Israel is shifting its focus to the northern frontier, where Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.
A rescuer inspects the debris at the site of an overnight Israeli strike on a pharmacy in the southern Lebanese village of Akbiyeh. /Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP
With the region increasingly on edge, over 30 international flights to and from Beirut on Tuesday were cancelled, according to the Rafic Hariri International Airport's website, including those of Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines and various routes from the United Arab Emirates.
Air France said it has extended its suspension of Beirut flights to October 1, AFP reported.
Lebanese caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati's office said he would fly to New York, where the United Nations General Assembly is taking place, "for further contacts" following the escalated wave of Israeli strikes on Lebanon on Monday.
The fighting has raised fears that the United States, Israel's close ally, and Iran, which has proxies across the Middle East - Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis and armed groups in Iraq - will be sucked into a wider conflict.
The strikes have piled pressure on Hezbollah, which last week suffered heavy losses when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded in the worst security breach in its history.
A Lebanese Middle East Airlines (MEA) plane is parked on the tarmac of Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport. /Mohamed Azakir/Reuters
The operation was widely attributed to Israel, which has not confirmed or denied responsibility.
Israel's intelligence and technological prowess has given it a strong edge in both Lebanon and Gaza. It has tracked down and assassinated top Hezbollah commanders and Hamas leaders.
Israel's military said about 55 projectiles had crossed into Israel in the latest attacks but the majority were intercepted and several fallen projectiles had been identified in the Upper Galilee area.
"Damage was caused to buildings in the area," it said, adding that of the projectiles were intercepted in the HaAmakim area and the rest fell in open areas.
Hezbollah said it had bombed the logistical warehouses of the 146th Division in the Naftali base with a rocket salvo.
The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven major democracies said the Middle East risked being dragged into a broader conflict that no country would gain from, according to a statement released after they met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
People sit with their belongings in the back of a truck as they arrive in the coastal town of Naameh, south of Lebanon's capital Beirut. /Fadel Itani/ AFP
Fears of regional instability
Exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah have escalated after almost a year of hostilities that flared last October as the Gaza conflict erupted.
Families from south Lebanon on Monday loaded cars, vans and trucks with belongings and people young and old. Highways north were gridlocked.
Israel's military said it struck Hezbollah in Lebanon's south, east and north on Monday, including rocket launchers, command posts and militant infrastructure. The Israeli Air Force struck about 1,600 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, it said.
Lebanon's health ministry said at least 492 people had been killed on Monday, including 35 children, and 1,645 wounded. One Lebanese official said it was Lebanon's highest daily death toll from violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.
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