Israel, Hezbollah Exchange Fire as Tensions Further Escalate

By Zhao Yusha

Sep 22, 2024 11:17 PM

Lebanese army soldiers secure the area for an ambulance to enter the premises of the American University hospital in Beirut on September 17, 2024, after coordinated explosions of pagers across Lebanon the same day. Photo: VCG

The exchange of heavy fire between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah has escalated an already tense situation in the Middle East to a dangerous boiling point, added the risk of spill-over, Chinese observers noted on Sunday. The latest conflicts have further dimmed hopes for peace and left little room for the international community to mediate, as the Israel-Palestine conflict approaches its one-year mark.

Israel and Lebanon exchanged heavy fire into Sunday, with Israeli warplanes carrying out the most intense bombardment in almost one year of war across Lebanon's south, while Hezbollah claimed rocket attacks on military targets in Israel's north, Reuters reported. 

The Israeli military said it struck around 290 targets on Saturday including thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels and said it would continue to strike targets.

Hezbollah said it targeted the Israeli Ramat David Airbase with successive barrages of missiles, in the deepest strikes it has claimed since hostilities began, per Reuters.

The escalating attacks come less than 48 hours after an Israeli airstrike targeting Hezbollah commanders in a suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut. The death toll from that strike had risen to 45, media cited Lebanese authorities as saying on Sunday. 

If Israel's conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon escalates, it could further destabilize the entire region, given that Hezbollah's influence surpasses that of Hamas, Wang Jin, an associate professor at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies at Northwest University in Xi'an, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Wang said Hezbollah's significance extends to groups such as the Houthis in Yemen, the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, and even Iran. Consequently, the situation in the Middle East may become increasingly perilous in the future.

The deadly Israeli airstrike targeting a building in the southern suburbs of Beirut was "terrorist aggression" against Lebanon's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity and a flagrant violation of international law, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said on Friday, according to Xinhua. 

China's permanent representative to the United Nations Fu Cong on Friday denounced the indiscriminate attacks on Lebanese civilians through wireless communication device explosions as "outrageous" and "something unheard of in history," while calling for Israel to abandon its reliance on force and refrain from further risky actions that could plunge the Middle East into new disasters.