Urgent calls grew for foreign nationals to leave Lebanon, which would be on the front line of a regional war, as Iran and its allies readied their response to high-profile killings blamed on Israel.
While diplomats worked to avert a feared conflagration, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Jordan’s King Abdullah II said Sunday a regional military escalation must be avoided “at all costs”, the French presidency said after they held a telephone call.
With major military action from Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and others widely expected, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said: “If they dare to attack us, they will pay a heavy price.”
The nearly 10-month-old war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas has already led to a violent fallout which has become routine around the region.
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In the deadliest incident on Sunday in Gaza, the Civil Defence agency said an Israeli strike hit two Gaza City schools housing displaced people, killing at least 30.
This brings to at least 11 the number of schools hit in Gaza since July 6.
Israel’s army confirmed the latest strike, saying Hamas was using the schools.
Near the Israeli commercial hub of Tel Aviv, medics and police said two people were killed in a stabbing attack.
The assailant, a Palestinian from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was “neutralised” by police and taken to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Hezbollah, which has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces since the Gaza war broke out in October, announced the deaths of two of its fighters without specifying where.
The Lebanese health ministry said an Israeli strike on the southern border village of Hula killed two people.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency had reported Israeli strikes on various areas of south Lebanon, after Hezbollah said it had fired a fresh barrage of rockets at northern Israel.
The Israeli military said most of the 30 projectiles launched from Lebanon were intercepted.
Sirens sounded again early Monday in northern Israel’s Upper Galilee region after “numerous suspicious aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon”, the Israeli military said.
The attack triggered a fire and an officer and a soldier were “moderately injured”, it said on Telegram.
The cross-border violence since October has killed some 547 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including 115 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Saudi Arabia and France became the latest of several countries calling on their citizens to leave Lebanon.
“In a highly volatile security context”, the foreign ministry in Paris “urgently asked” its nationals to avoid travelling to Lebanon and suggested those already in the country leave “as soon as possible”.
France also urged its nationals living in Iran to “temporarily leave”.
