Israel and Hezbollah exchange messages calling for de-escalation - after Netanyahu warns 'this is not the end'

Israel and Hezbollah have reportedly exchanged messages via intermediaries aimed at preventing further escalation after both sides traded heavy fire on Sunday.

The development comes hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned “this is not the end of the verse” after Israel launched “pre-emptive strikes” against Hezbollah in Lebanon in the early hours of Sunday.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said nearly all the targets it struck were short-range rockets aimed at northern Israel.

Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group, said it fired drones and hundreds of rockets at Israel on Sunday morning in response to the killing of one of its top commanders in the Lebanese capital Beirut last month.

The group said it had hit an Israeli military intelligence site near Tel Aviv as part of the barrage.

IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the Lebanese group was planning to “harm Israeli civilians” and managed to launch “only about 230 rockets” and around 20 drones.

“Most of them either fell on their way to Israeli territory, landed in open areas, or were intercepted by Israeli air force defence systems and Israeli navy ships,” he said.

As it happened: Israel and Hezbollah exchange fire

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the group’s attack against Israel went “as planned” and dismissed IDF statements that its strikes had prevented a larger assault.

He also said Hezbollah’s attack had been delayed to give Gaza ceasefire talks a chance, and so fellow Iran-backed groups could discuss with Iran whether to attack Israel all at once.

Mr Nasrallah said Hezbollah “will now reserve the right to respond at a later time if the results of Sunday’s attack aren’t sufficient”, adding that allied Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and Iran had yet to respond.

He told the Lebanese people: “At this current stage, the country can take a breath and relax.”

Hezbollah and Israel said they aimed only at military targets during their attacks.

Israel said no military target was hit by Hezbollah but that one soldier with its navy was killed and two others were wounded either by an interceptor for incoming fire or by shrapnel from one.

Meanwhile, two Hezbollah fighters and a militant from an allied group were killed in the Israeli strikes, the group said.

Speaking on Sunday afternoon, Mr Netanyahu said: “What happened today is not the end of the verse.

“Hezbollah tried to attack the State of Israel with rockets and drones early in the morning. We instructed the IDF to carry out a powerful pre-emptive strike to remove the threat.

“The IDF destroyed thousands of short-range rockets, and they were all intended to harm our citizens and our forces in the Galilee.

“In addition, the IDF intercepted all the UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] that Hezbollah launched for a strategic purpose in the centre of the country.

“We are hitting Hezbollah with surprising thrusts.”

His comments came before Reuters reported that both sides had exchanged messages in an effort to prevent further escalation at Israel’s border with Lebanon.

One diplomat told the news agency that the overarching message was that both sides considered the overnight exchange of fire “done” and neither wanted a full-scale war.

World leaders have feared the 10-month Israel-Hamas war conflict spiral into a wider regional conflict between Israel and Iran or Iran-backed proxies.

Hours after Hezbollah and Israel carried out their strikes, Hamas’s armed wing claimed it had fired a rocket at Tel Aviv.

The militant group says the attack was in response to Israeli “massacres against civilians”.

The latest violence comes after talks in Cairo aimed at negotiating a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza ended with no agreement, Reuters reported, citing two Egyptian sources.

The sources reportedly said that neither Hamas nor Israel agreed to several compromises suggested by mediators.

Hamas said it has rejected new Israeli ceasefire conditions which it claims deviated from a US proposal which was put forward in July.

The militant group has now accused Israel of backtracking on a promise to withdraw its troops from a narrow stretch of land along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.

It added that Israeli officials had proposed other new conditions, such as screening displaced Palestinians on their return to northern Gaza.

“We will not accept discussions about retractions from what we agreed to on July 2 or new conditions,” Hamas official Osama Hamdan told its Al Aqsa TV.