Yoav Gallant declares a ‘special situation on the home front’ [Video]

Israel launched a series of intense airstrikes in southern Lebanon early Sunday in what it said was a pre-emptive strike against the Hezbollah militant group, threatening to trigger a broader region-wide war that could torpedo efforts to forge a cease-fire in Gaza.The army said Hezbollah was planning to launch a heavy barrage of rockets and missiles toward Israel. The Iranian-backed group had been promising to retaliate for Israel’s assassination of a top commander late last month.Video above: Gazan father went to register his twins’ births. They were killed in an Israeli airstrike, hospital officials sayAir raid sirens were reported throughout northern Israel, and Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport began diverting incoming flights and delaying takeoffs.Soon afterward, Hezbollah announced it had launched an attack on Israel with a “large number of drones” as an initial response to the killing of Fouad Shukur, a top commander with the group, in a strike in …