The aftermath of an explosion on Monday in the Lebanese village of Qmatiyeh near Beirut.
Credit...David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

Year After Oct. 7 Attack, Israel Faces 4-Front War

Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and Yemen: Israeli forces exchanged fire with militants backed by Tehran on Monday.

by · NY Times

Israel’s military kept up its strikes on two fronts Monday, with an intense barrage on southern Lebanon and a retaliatory attack targeting Hamas in southern Gaza, a sign of how significantly the fighting has spread in the year since Hamas’s cross-border assault.

As Israelis commemorated the Oct. 7 attack that led to the war in the Gaza Strip, Hamas launched a rare rocket attack at Tel Aviv, saying it was targeting “the depths of the occupation.” The rocket strike did little damage, and hours later, Israel responded with what it said was an attack on the rocket launcher that had fired the projectiles.

Israel also sent more troops to Lebanon to support the ground invasion there that it began last week with the stated goal of stopping the militant group Hezbollah from firing rockets across the border.

And on a separate front, the military said it had intercepted a missile fired at Israel by the Houthi militia, which is based in Yemen, about 1,000 miles away.

The scope of that military activity against the groups — all of them backed by Iran — made clear how the fighting has broadened a year after Hamas led the attack on Israel. About 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage that day.

In addition to the invasions of Gaza, where more than 40,000 people have been killed, largely by Israeli airstrikes, and of Lebanon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has vowed to retaliate against Iran for firing nearly 200 missiles at his country last Tuesday.

Israel’s ferocious air and ground war in Gaza has largely destroyed Hamas’s main military units, according to experts, but the group remains capable of directing rockets toward Israel, and they are sometimes able to penetrate the country’s air defenses. The rocket fire on Monday appeared intended to show that Hamas retains a military capability despite the Israeli onslaught.

It was not clear if it had been timed to coincide with the Oct. 7 anniversary but Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, said in a statement on the group’s website on Monday that Hamas would continue fighting a “long, painful and extremely costly war of attrition” for Israel.

Four projectiles fired from Gaza fell in open areas in central Israel, and one was intercepted, according to the state broadcaster, Kan, which reported that one woman was slightly injured and that Ben Gurion Airport stopped flights for a time.

Israel’s military said its fighter jets had struck the rocket launcher used to fire at Israel from the area of Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza that Israeli forces invaded in December in an attempt to crush Hamas. Months later, they returned to try to crack down on a resurgence of the militants.

During the strike in Khan Younis, “secondary explosions were identified, indicating the presence of weapons,” the Israeli military said in a statement. There was no independent confirmation of the claim.

A New York Times correspondent in Bani Suhaila, a town just east of Khan Younis, witnessed an airstrike hitting an area about 300 yards from where he was standing. Families fled on foot carrying their belongings after the strike, the correspondent said.

The military also said it had struck a launcher in northern Gaza from which projectiles were fired toward Israel. The military did not say whether the projectiles landed in Israel, and Hamas did not comment on the claim.

When Israeli forces first invaded northern Gaza last October, they told residents to evacuate. On Monday, they did so again, directing civilians in large parts of the area to leave because of an impending military operation.

Much of the Palestinian enclave lies in ruins, and virtually all of its population of 2.2 million has been forced to flee their homes, and many have fled multiple times.

“I feel like they are tossing us around from one place to another,” said Saher Abu Dagheem, one northern Gazan affected by the Israeli evacuation order. “They don’t consider our lives,” said Mr. Dagheem, 38, a resident of Jabaliya.

Last week, Israel followed up on its assassination of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, by sending tanks and troops over the border into Lebanon. Lebanon’s state-run news agency on Monday reported intense Israeli airstrikes in southwestern Lebanon, where the Israeli military issued new evacuation warnings for more than two dozen towns and villages.

The Israeli military said it was hitting Hezbollah targets. A number of strikes hit the Dahiya, a densely packed cluster of neighborhoods adjoining Beirut, where acrid smoke has been thick after waves of bombardment in recent days.

Later, the military said it had struck more than 120 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon within an hour, using more than 100 air force jets to target intelligence, rocket and other units, as well as the group’s elite Radwan Force.

The air and ground onslaught has caused large-scale casualties in Lebanon and has depopulated whole cities in the south of the country. The World Food Program said most residents of the southern coastal city of Tyre, once home to 200,000 people, were now displaced. The United Nations estimates that 1.2 million people — more than 20 percent of the Lebanese population — have sought shelter away from their homes.

Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli strike overnight on a fire station in Baraachit, in southern Lebanon, had killed at least 10 firefighters preparing to go on duty.

Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 1,000 people, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Its figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel’s military said on Monday that two of its soldiers had died in Lebanon over the past day.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since the current round of fighting began last October, and nearly 10,000 others have been wounded, Lebanon’s health ministry said. Most casualties have occurred over the past three weeks. Israeli strikes killed 22 people and wounded more than 100 on Sunday alone, the ministry said.

Lebanon’s health minister, Dr. Firass Abiad, has said that the number of dead and injured is most likely an undercount since it is based only on casualties reported by hospitals.

The fighting began after Hezbollah fired rockets over the border a day after the Oct. 7 attack as a show of support for Hamas.

Over the past year, Hezbollah has fired thousands of missiles and drones across the border, even in the face of the intensified Israeli onslaught. Israel’s military said that on Monday alone the group fired 140 rockets toward the country, evidence that the Israeli operation has yet to eliminate Hezbollah’s military capacity.

One rocket fired overnight slightly injured a 13-year-old boy in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, according to Israel’s emergency rescue service.

Adam Rasgon and Natan Odenheimer contributed reporting.

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