Israel, Hezbollah step up strikes as war threat looms

Lebanon's Hezbollah launched over 100 rockets on Sunday across a wider and deeper area of northern Israel, with some landing near the city of Haifa.

The rocket barrage overnight sent thousands of people scrambling into shelters. The rocket fire reached Kiryat Bialik on the edge of Haifa, a major city in northern Israel, where it left a building in flames, another pockmarked with shrapnel, and vehicles incinerated.

Israel's civil defense agency ordered all schools in the country's north closed following the rocket fire.

Hezbollah announced that it targeted Israeli military production facilities and an air base in the Haifa area after the communication device blasts last week that killed 39 and wounded almost 3,000.

"In an initial response" to the explosions of the pagers and two-way radios, which it blamed on Israel, Hezbollah "bombed the Rafael military industry complexes" in northern Israel with "dozens" of rockets, the group said.

It said it targeted Ramat David airbase with Fadi-1 and Fadi-2 rockets. The site is among the deepest inside Israeli territory so far targeted, and this appeared to be the group's first use of that rocket type during the Gaza war.

In a statement yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel has "landed a series of blows on Hezbollah that it could have never imagined."

"If Hezbollah did not get the message, I assure you it will get the message."

"No country can tolerate attacks on its citizens, attacks on its cities. And we, the State of Israel, will not tolerate it either," he said, vowing to return residents of northern Israel displaced by nearly a year of fighting to their homes.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant also said that Hezbollah is "beginning...