Israel Strikes Lebanon Following Hezbollah Attacks, Widening Iran Conflict

JERUSALEM/TEL AVIV/DUBAI/BEIRUT, March 2 (Reuters) – Israel launched new airstrikes targeting Tehran on Monday and expanded its military campaign to include attacks on Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, after U.S. President Donald Trump signaled that a U.S.-Israeli military offensive against Iranian targets could continue for weeks.

Israel said Lebanon, one of Tehran’s main allies in the Middle East, attacked areas linked to Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim armed group, after Hezbollah admitted firing missiles and drones at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The Israeli army said that one projectile launched from Lebanon was intercepted, while others fell in open areas of the country.

Israel launched airstrikes on Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs on Monday, setting off more than a dozen explosions in Lebanon’s capital. Israel said it also shot senior Hezbollah militants near Beirut.

Following the series of strikes that started around 02.40 in the morning in Beirut, people fled on foot and by car and blocked the roads.

Israel and Lebanon agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire in 2024 after more than a year of fighting that severely weakened Hezbollah.

Tit-for-tat attacks by Hezbollah and Israel are further expanding the conflict that has spread across the Middle East since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday, causing oil prices to rise and air travel to be disrupted.

The Lebanese presidency said in a statement on Saturday that the US ambassador told it that Israel would not escalate tensions against Lebanon as long as there were no hostile actions by Lebanon.

The Israeli military said Hezbollah was “fully responsible for any escalation of tensions” and warned residents of dozens of villages in southern and eastern Lebanon to evacuate.

The Israeli military said late Sunday that its air force had established air superiority over Tehran and that the wave of attacks in the capital targeted intelligence, security and military command centres.

In Iran, President Masoud Pezeshkian said a leadership council consisting of himself, the head of the judiciary and a member of the powerful Guardian Council had temporarily assumed the duties of the Supreme Leader.

Air raid sirens rang across Israel late Sunday, including in Tel Aviv, where bullets streaked across the night sky as Iran fired a new barrage of missiles.

The first US casualties of the campaign, including the deaths of three service personnel, were confirmed on Sunday. Two US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that US soldiers were killed at a base in Kuwait.

While Trump called the three killed “true American patriots,” he also warned there would likely be more casualties. “It is like this,” he said.

An expanded military campaign could pose a major political risk for Trump’s Republican party ahead of US midterm elections that will decide the fate of Congress. Only one in four Americans approve of the operation, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Sunday.

But in a video released Sunday, Trump promised that military strikes against Iran would continue “until all of our goals are achieved,” without providing details. He said the attack has so far eliminated Iran’s military command and destroyed nine Iranian naval ships and a navy building.

The US military said American aircraft and warships have struck more than 1,000 Iranian targets since the start of major combat operations on Saturday.

Trump called on Iran’s military and police, including the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), to stop the fighting, promising immunity to those who surrender and threatening “certain death” to those who resist. He reiterated his call for the Iranian people to rise up against the government.

“I call on all Iranian patriots who long for freedom to seize this moment, be brave, be heroes, and take back your country,” Trump said in the pre-recorded video. “America is with you.”

In an interview with multiple news outlets, Trump said military action against Iran could last at least four weeks. Senior Trump administration officials are preparing to brief the full membership of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on Tuesday, a White House spokesman said.

Following Khamenei’s death, Iran faces a power vacuum that could plunge it into chaos, but the Trump administration has not outlined long-term goals for the country.

Breaking from what has become his customary practice while staying at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump did not speak to the pool of reporters traveling with him. No administration officials attended Sunday’s political debates in the United States.

The Trump administration wants to avoid sending mixed signals as officials continue to discuss policy details internally, a person familiar with the discussions told Reuters.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said on Sunday that they shot down three US and UK oil tankers in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz and attacked military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain with unmanned aerial vehicles and missiles. Traders expect sharp rises in crude oil prices on Monday as shipping data show hundreds of ships, including oil and gas tankers, anchored in nearby waters.

In one of the biggest aviation disruptions in recent years, global air travel has also been severely disrupted as ongoing air strikes keep major airports in the Middle East closed, including Dubai, the world’s busiest international hub.

Oman’s foreign ministry said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi had indicated that Tehran was open to de-escalating tensions. But in a post on X, Araqchi suggested that Iran was ready to continue fighting.

It remains unclear what the long-term prospects are for Iran to rebuild its leadership and replace the 86-year-old Khamenei, who has been in power since the 1989 death of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

His death and that of other Iranian leaders would deal a major blow to Iran, but it would not necessarily mean the end of Iran’s long-established religious rule or the elite Revolutionary Guard’s dominance over the population, experts said.

Still, it is too early to tell how the Iranian people will react to the changes. A new analysis of Iranian social media by Redpoint Advisors, a global intelligence firm, suggests that the public is already expecting him to replace Khamenei.

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Dubai, reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Michael Georgy, James Mackenzie, Nathan Layne and Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Sergio Non, Raju Gopalakrishnan, Hugh Lawson, William Maclean, Bill Berkrot and Michael Perry)