As Israeli warplanes pounded border villages and more than 100,000 residents fled northwards, politicians in Beirut called for de-escalation to avoid a war as authorities said four people had been killed and nine injured over the weekend.
But the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was also trenchant in his rhetoric.
“In the last few days, we have inflicted on Hezbollah a sequence of blows that it did not imagine. If Hezbollah did not understand the message, I promise you it will understand the message,” he said.
“No country can tolerate shooting at its residents, shooting at its cities, and we, the state of Israel, will not tolerate it either … We will do everything necessary to restore security.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said early on Sunday that hundreds of rockets had been fired into Israel from Lebanon, with some landing near the northern city of Haifa.
They said rockets had been fired “toward civilian areas”, pointing to a possible escalation after previous barrages had mainly been aimed at military targets.
