Hezbollah launched a missile at Tel Aviv early Wednesday in its deepest strike yet into Israel, marking a further escalation after Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed hundreds of people.
The Israeli military said it intercepted the surface-to-surface missile, which set off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv and across central Israel, and there were no reports of casualties or damage. The military said it struck the site in southern Lebanon from which the missile was launched.
Hezbollah said it fired a Qader 1 ballistic missile targeting the headquarters of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, which it blames for a recent string of targeted killings of its top commanders and for an attack last week in which explosives hidden in pagers and walkie-talkies killed dozens of people and wounded thousands, including many Hezbollah members.
The Israeli military said it was the first time a projectile fired from Lebanon had reached central Israel. Hezbollah claimed to have targeted an intelligence base near Tel Aviv last month in an aerial attack, but there was no confirmation. The Palestinian Hamas militant group in Gaza repeatedly targeted Tel Aviv in the opening months of the war.
The launch ratcheted up tensions as the region appears to be teetering toward another all-out war, even as Israel continues its war on Gaza. A wave of Israeli strikes on Monday and Tuesday killed at least 560 people in Lebanon and forced thousands to seek refuge.
Families have fled southern Lebanon, flocking to Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon, sleeping in schools turned into shelters, as well as in cars, parks and along the beach. Some sought to leave the country, causing a traffic jam at the border with Syria.
Israel said late Tuesday that fighter jets carried out "extensive strikes" on Hezbollah weapons and rocket launchers across southern Lebanon and in the Bekaa region to the north. The military has said it has no immediate plans for a ground invasion but has declined to give a timetable for the air campaign.