Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, Hamas vows to rise again

By Steven Scheer and Maya Gebeily

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT (Reuters) -Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel's third-largest city of Haifa and Hamas vowed to rise again as Israel looked poised to expand its offensive into Lebanon, a year after the devastating Hamas attack that sparked the Gaza war.

Israelis held ceremonies and protests on Monday to mark the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas as the Gaza conflict has spread across the Middle East and fanned fears of an all-out regional war.

Hamas, which has seen the Palestinian territory of Gaza laid waste by Israel's war, vowed to rise "like a phoenix" from the ashes despite heavy losses from a year of fighting.

On Monday, Iran-backed Hezbollah, a Hamas ally in Lebanon, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with "Fadi 1" missiles and launched another strike on Tiberias, 65 km (40 miles) away.

The armed group later said it also targeted areas north of Haifa with missiles. Israel's military said about 190 projectiles entered its territory on Monday. There were at least 12 injuries.

Israel's military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon and two Israeli soldiers were killed, taking the Israeli military death toll inside Lebanon to 11.

Israeli airstrikes have displaced 1.2 million people in Lebanon, and Israel's intensified bombing campaign has worried many Lebanese that their country will experience the vast scale of destruction wrought on Gaza by Israel.

Israeli forces issued a warning in Arabic to beachgoers and boat users to avoid a stretch of the Lebanese coast, saying they would soon begin operations against Hezbollah from the sea.

Lebanon's health ministry reported dozens of deaths, including 10 firefighters killed in an airstrike on a municipal building in the border area. About 2,000 Lebanese have been killed since Hezbollah began firing at Israel a year ago in solidarity with Hamas, most killed in the past few weeks.

The Israeli military has described its ground operation in Lebanon as "localised, limited and targeted," but it has steadily increased in scale beginning last week.

The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) says its aim is to clear border areas where Hezbollah fighters have been embedded, with no plans to go deep into Lebanon.

Israel's superpower ally, the United States, believes the Lebanon ground operation continues to be limited, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday.

The spiralling conflict has raised concerns that the United States and Iran will be sucked into a wider war in the oil-producing region.

Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel on Oct. 1 in support of Hamas. Israel has said it will retaliate and is weighing its options. Iran's oil facilities are a possible target.

HAMAS VOWS TO 'RISE LIKE PHOENIX'

Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people and took some 250 hostages to Gaza on Oct. 7 last year, according to Israeli figures. The Israeli security lapse resulted in the single deadliest day for Jews since the Nazi Holocaust.

Many Israelis have since regained confidence in their long-vaunted military and intelligence after deadly blows in recent weeks to the command structure of Iran's proxy force, Hezbollah.

"We are changing the security reality in our region, for our children's sake, for our future, to ensure that what happened on Oct. 7 does not happen again," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem marking the Gaza war anniversary.

Israel's war has reduced Gaza to rubble, killed almost 42,000 people and displaced most of its 2.3 million people, Palestinian health authorities say.

Israel says Hamas no longer exists as an organised military structure and has been reduced to guerrilla tactics. Hamas fighters account for at least a third of the roughly 17,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza, Israeli officials say. About 350 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat in Gaza.

But Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal said the Palestinian group would rise again and that it continues to recruit fighters and manufacture weapons.

"Palestinian history is made of cycles," Meshaal, 68, asenior figure under overall leader Yahya Sinwar, toldReuters in an interview marking the Gaza war anniversary.

"We go through phases where we lose martyrs (victims) and we lose part of our military capabilities, but then the Palestinian spirit rises again, like the phoenix, thanks to God."

Meshaal, who survived an Israeli assassination attempt in1997 after he was injected with poison and was overall Hamasleader from 1996 to 2017, said the Islamist militant group wasstill able to mount ambushes against Israeli troops.

(Reporting by Steven Scheer, Joseph Campbell and Yomna Ehab; Additional reporting by Monica Naime; Writing by Michael Georgy, Mark Heinrich, Alex Richardson, Patricia Zengerle and Michael Perry; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)