AITO, Lebanon — One day after a deadly Israeli airstrike in northern Lebanon – far from Hezbollah’s main area of influence in the south and east – the acting leader of the militant group said it would aim rockets into more areas of Israel.
Naim Kassem said Hezbollah is focused on “hurting the enemy,” and he signaled it would ramp up attacks further south in Israel, mentioning the cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa, which have already been targets of attacks.
His comments were made in a pre-recorded televised speech delivered on the same day the United States said it sent a small team of troops to Israel to support an American-made missile-defense system. The Biden administration has also sent a warning to Israel: It must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it is allowing into Gaza within the next 30 days or it could risk losing access to U.S. weapons funding.
Hezbollah has fired an estimated 13,000 rockets into Israel over the past year in support of Hamas’ war with Israel in Gaza. Tens of thousands of northern Israelis have been displaced from their homes by those attacks — and Israel has said its war with Hezbollah is aimed at stopping those rockets so families can return home.
On Monday, an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in northern Lebanon killed at least 22 people. Israel said it “struck a target belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization,” but on Tuesday the United Nations’ called for an independent investigation.
“We have real concerns with respect to … the laws of war,” Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for the U.N.’s human rights office in Geneva said. Laurence said the U.N. had received credible reports that a dozen women and children were among the dead.
In the small village of Aito, rescue workers searching through the rubble on Tuesday found more bodies and remains.
Aito is in the country’s Christian heartland and far from Hezbollah’s main areas of influence in Lebanon’s south and east. The strike was a shock to residents, and it exacerbated fears that Israel would expand its offensive deeper into Lebanon.
“I heard a loud noise, like a boom,” said Dany Alwan, who lives next door. “We ran outside, I saw the dust and the smoke and the rubble. There was a body here, another one there. It was a really ugly and painful scene.”
The three-story building had been rented out to the Hijazi family, which fled their home in the southern village of Aitaroun, according to Elie Alwan, Dany Alwan’s brother and the building’s owner. Some 1.2 million people have fled southern and eastern Lebanon, where the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has been concentrated.
As rescue workers rummaged through the debris on Tuesday, they found the body of a child, and later a small leg and other remains that they put together in a white bag. The Lebanese military watched as a bulldozer cleared heaps of twisted steel, destroyed olive trees, and crushed rocks.
Hezbollah began targeting Israel with rockets on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after the Hamas attack on Israel that left 1,200 dead and 250 as hostages in Gaza.
Israel’s ensuing war against Hamas has left more than 42,000 people dead in Gaza, according to local health officials. They do not differentiate between fighters and civilians, but have said a little more than half the dead are women and children.
Hezbollah has insisted it will continue to target Israel until a cease-fire in Gaza is reached.
“We cannot separate Lebanon from Palestine, or Palestine from the world,” said Kassem, who has headed Hezbollah since Sept. 27, when its longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike.
Over the past year, 2,350 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli airstrikes, according to the country’s Health Ministry, which says roughly 25 percent have been women and children.
Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder announced Tuesday the arrival of U.S. troops in Israel a day earlier. The team will operate a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery there to defend against ballistic missile attacks from Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas, and has launched two missile attacks on Israel.
“Over the coming days, additional U.S. military personnel and THAAD battery components will continue to arrive in Israel,” Ryder said.
Iran has warned U.S. troops would be in harm’s way if they launch another attack.
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Associated Press Writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.