Lebanon’s Hezbollah said early on Thursday, April 9, it fired rockets at northern Israel in its first attack against the country since the United States reached a two-week ceasefire agreement with Iran.

Hezbollah said in a statement that its attack came in response to what it described as Israeli ceasefire violations, after Israel launched its biggest attack on Lebanon in this war on Wednesday, April 8. The Israel strikes killed more than 250 people.

The strikes raised questions about regional truce efforts, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian saying a ceasefire in Lebanon was an essential condition of his country’s agreement with the US.

On Wednesday afternoon, at least five consecutive strikes rocked the capital Beirut, sending columns of smoke into the sky as Israel’s military said it had launched the largest coordinated strike of the war. More than 100 Hezbollah command centers and military sites were targeted in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon within ten minutes, it said.

A total of 254 people were killed and more than 1,100 wounded across Lebanon, the country’s civil defense service said. The highest toll was in Beirut, where 91 people were killed. The health ministry reported 182 deaths across the country but said the figure was not final.

Hezbollah said early on Thursday that it fired rockets at the small kibbutz of Manara, citing what it described as Israel’s ceasefire violations.

“This response will continue until the Israeli-American aggression against our country and our people ceases,” the group said in a statement.

It was the deadliest day of the war that erupted on March 2, when Hezbollah fired into Israel in support of Tehran after the US-Israeli attack on Iran two days earlier. Israel launched a full air and ground campaign in response.

Reuters reporters saw civil defense workers guiding an older woman onto a crane to evacuate her from a building in western Beirut. Half of the building had been sheared off in an Israeli strike, leaving residents on upper floors trapped.

Earlier, reporters saw people on motorcycles picking up the wounded and transporting them to hospitals because ambulances could not reach them in time. One of Beirut’s largest medical facilities said it needed donations of all blood types.

“The scale of the killing and destruction in Lebanon today is nothing short of horrific,” said UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk. “Such carnage, within hours of agreeing to a ceasefire with Iran, defies belief.”

Late Wednesday evening, a strike hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, according to a Reuters live broadcast.

Israel, US say Lebanon not included in truce

In a televised address Wednesday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Lebanon was not part of the ceasefire with Iran and that the Israeli military would continue striking Hezbollah.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Vice President JD Vance also said Lebanon was not included in the truce.

“I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t,” Vance told reporters in Budapest.

Earlier, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a key intermediary in US-Iran ceasefire talks, said the truce would include Lebanon.

In a statement, Hezbollah condemned what it called Israel’s “barbaric aggression” and said the attacks underscored its right to respond.

Hezbollah had stopped attacking Israeli targets early Wednesday, three Lebanese sources close to the group told Reuters.

“Hezbollah was informed that it is part of the ceasefire – so we abided by it, but Israel as usual has violated it and committed massacres across Lebanon,” senior Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim al-Moussawi told Reuters.

Another Hezbollah lawmaker, Hassan Fadlallah, said there would be “repercussions for the entire agreement” if Israel’s attacks continued.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned the US and Israel that it would deliver a “regret-inducing response” if attacks on Lebanon did not stop.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned Wednesday’s strikes and said French President Emmanuel Macron had told him he was ready to make a diplomatic push for Lebanon to be included in any ceasefire.

A senior Lebanese official told Reuters that Lebanon had not participated in correspondence leading up to the ceasefire.

‘I’m living a nightmare’

Most of Wednesday’s strikes hit civilian areas, Israel’s military said. Hours before the attacks, the military had issued warnings for some areas of southern Beirut and southern Lebanon, but no warning was given for central Beirut, which was also hit.

Following the strikes, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on X that Hezbollah had moved out of its traditional Shiite stronghold in southern Beirut’s Dahiyeh neighborhood to religiously mixed areas elsewhere. He said Israel’s military would pursue Hezbollah wherever it was and had attacked a Hezbollah commander in Beirut, without providing further details.

In a western Beirut neighborhood hit by a strike, Naim Chebbo, 51, swept up shards of glass blown out of window frames by the blast.

“Tonight I’m not going to sleep because I’m going to be afraid that it’s happening again. I’m living a nightmare,” he told Reuters.

‘Lebanon can’t take it anymore’

Israel also struck the last remaining bridge linking southern Lebanon to the rest of the country on Wednesday, a senior Lebanese security source said. The bridge runs over the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the Israeli border.

An Israeli military spokesperson said the area south of the Litani was “disconnected from Lebanon.”

Israel said it intends to occupy the area as a “buffer zone.” It has struck hospitals and power stations there, and thousands of Lebanese civilians still living in the area say they are struggling with shortages of food and medicine.

Israel has issued evacuation orders covering around 15% of Lebanese territory, mostly in the south and in suburbs south of Beirut. More than 1.2 million people have been displaced.

Many had hoped a ceasefire could allow them to return. Outside a school sheltering displaced people in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, people had piled pillows and blankets onto cars, thinking they could return home.

Before Wednesday’s attacks, more than 1,500 people had been killed in Israel’s air and ground campaign across Lebanon, including more than 130 children.

“Hopefully a ceasefire will be reached,” said Ahmed Harm, a 54-year-old displaced from Beirut’s southern suburbs. “Lebanon can’t take it anymore.” – Rappler.com