Israel-Hamas war: Hezbollah threatens to strike Cyprus as Israeli forces shell tents housing displaced families

Displaced families seeking shelter in tents have been targeted by Israeli forces in the country’s latest attack on Gaza.

Israel tanks pushed deeper into western Rafah in south Gaza on Friday firing shells at the tents, with one armoured vehicle blown up by a Hamas-planted improvised explosive device. Multiple injuries have been reported.

It comes amid fears of a regional war have grown after Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement said none of Israel would be spared in a full-blown conflict, and Israel said it had approved plans for a Lebanon offensive.

In the latest border unrest, Hezbollah said it fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel in retaliation for a deadly air strike in south Lebanon that Israel said killed a Hezbollah operative.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s group and Israeli forces have exchanged near-daily fire since Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel triggered the Gaza war.

In a televised address, Nasrallah said “no place” in Israel would “be spared our rockets” if war began.

The chief of the Iran-backed group also threatened the nearby island nation of Cyprus if it opened its airports or bases to Israel “to target Lebanon”.

European Union member Cyprus is home to two British military bases including an air base, but they are in sovereign British territory and not controlled by the Cypriot government.

On Thursday the Cypriot government spokesman dismissed as “totally groundless” any suggestion of possible involvement in a conflict related to Lebanon.

“Cyprus is not involved, nor will it become involved, in any military conflicts,” Konstantinos Letymbiotis told state radio.

Warplanes from the British airbase in Cyprus have, along with US forces, carried out reprisal strikes against Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels who have for months been attacking shipping in adjacent waterways.

The Iran-backed group also announced the death of two of its fighters.

Lebanon’s official National News agency reported Israeli strikes on several areas in south Lebanon on Wednesday morning, including on the border village of Khiam, where an AFP photographer saw a large cloud of smoke.

The US military said its forces destroyed two Huthi sites in Yemen. The October Hamas attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 37,431 people, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.

The latest toll on Thursday included at least 35 deaths over the previous day, the ministry said.

The Huthis and Hezbollah both say they are acting in response to Israel’s actions in Gaza.

On Tuesday, Israel’s military announced that “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon were approved and validated”.

The same day, Hezbollah published a video showing drone footage purportedly taken by the movement over northern Israel, including parts of Haifa’s city and port.

US envoy Amos Hochstein has called for “urgent” de-escalation. The cross-border violence has killed at least 479 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also 93 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israeli authorities say at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed in the country’s north.

Weary residents of Beirut on Thursday downplayed the chances of war in Lebanon, which a political deadlock has left essentially leaderless while a five-year economic meltdown continues.

In Israel, some citizens called for action against Hezbollah, and Noam Galili, 29, said: “I know what it is like to live close to Lebanon, but it never felt as dangerous as it does now.”

The violence has already displaced tens of thousands of people, mostly in Lebanon but also in northern Israel