A new wave of Israeli airstrikes began Sunday evening on locations across Lebanon, some hitting dangerously close to Lebanon’s only international airport. Israel had said it would launch a full-scale attack on a banking institution it considers Hezbollah’s de facto financial arm, the Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association.

The attacks began a day after a drone attacked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private home in the central city of Caesarea. He and his wife were not there at the time and there were no casualties, but Netanyahu released a statement on Saturday saying: “The attempt by the Iranian proxy Hezbollah to kill me and my wife today was a serious mistake.”

Explosions rocked Beirut on Sunday evening as Israeli attacks on Al-Qard al-Hassan began.

The Israeli military said in a statement Monday morning that the institution “directly finances Hezbollah’s terrorist activities, including the purchase of weapons and payments to operatives.” The IDF said the Iran-backed, US-Israeli-designated terrorist group has “billions of dollars” stored at its facilities across Lebanon, “including money held directly under the name of the terrorist organization.”

The IDF said the strikes hit al-Qard al-Hassan targets in the capital Beirut, in southern Lebanon, and “deep within Lebanese territory,” in addition to ongoing attacks in the south that it said involved 15 Hezbollah rocket launchers those who targeted the army. “the communities of northern Israel.”

The IDF said that “numerous steps have been taken to limit the risk of harm to civilians, including advance warnings issued through various platforms to the civilian population in the area.”

But with every new attack, hospitals that are already overwhelmed are coming under even greater pressure and more and more people are being forced to flee their homes. Lebanese officials say 1.2 million people across the country have been displaced by the war that escalated sharply a month ago with the start of intense Israeli airstrikes.

Anger and fear for the future grip Lebanese citizens

Displaced Lebanese civilians have set up makeshift shelters where they can find a piece of land they think will be safe.

CBS News met Hussein Hamieh as he held his little more than a month-old son outside the tent he had set up on Beirut’s popular beach. He fled his home in the southern suburbs of Beirut, an area long considered a Hezbollah stronghold that has come under repeated attacks since mid-September.

The ongoing strikes have only hardened his resolve and his anger.

“I had to flee because we are facing a ruthless enemy,” Hamieh said. “They are shooting missiles at us, I was forced to leave my house.”

“We will win, and as long as we live in our country, we will win,” he told CBS News. “We will endure famine, rain, the sea or snow, and we may live under the trees, but we will not leave our land.”

Mona Jabour, a Beirut resident and artist, said she worried about the long-term damage this war would do to everyone in the country, especially the younger generations.

“People go through hell,” she said. “Everything is crumbling under our feet… It’s just a disaster to see young people being raised with violence and wars, and this will perpetuate new hatred and new wars.”

“These types of wars shouldn’t even be allowed in 2024,” she told CBS News. ‘They bomb each other, and these wars cost a lot of money – the money spent on weapons could be spent much more wisely and constructively, on education, on building houses, on improving third world countries, on creating more security . I think people need to become aware of the damage that is being done.”

Netanyahu’s government launched its attack on Hezbollah in September and said it would continue until the group was no longer able to launch missiles and drones across Lebanon’s southern border at Israeli communities. Hezbollah has launched more than 10,000 weapons at Israel in the past year in support of Hamas, its Iranian-backed ally in the war-torn Gaza Strip.

The US sends an Israeli missile defense system and tries to “reduce tensions”

Most of those Hezbollah missiles and drones are shot down by Israel’s missile defense systems, and Iran itself has also launched two ballistic missile salvos at Israel in the past year in response to the assassination of its senior commanders and allies. The region has been in a state of tension ever since Netanyahu promised to make Iran pay before the last rocket attack on October 1, which caused no casualties.

In anticipation of Israel’s threatened response – and any possible Iranian counter-reaction – the US did just that Israel sent a new missile defense system. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Monday that the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system had arrived in Israel, along with a small contingent of about 100 US troops.

“We have the ability to put it into service very quickly,” Austin said during a visit to Ukraine’s capital.

The Biden administration has made clear it would not support an Israeli counterattack targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities or oil infrastructure, but Austin indicated Monday that Washington was still unsure exactly how far Netanyahu’s government would go.

“It is difficult to say what exactly that (Israeli) attack will look like,” he said. “Ultimately, that’s an Israeli decision, and whether or not the Israelis see it as proportionate and how the Iranians perceive it, I mean, those could be two different things.”

Austin said the U.S. would “continue to do everything we can… to reduce tensions and hopefully get both sides to de-escalate.”

As part of ongoing efforts to halt the escalating confrontation between Israel and Iran’s proxy groups in Lebanon and Gaza, senior White House envoy Amos Hochstein was in Beirut on Monday to meet with the Lebanese Prime Minister and the President of Congress. the country’s parliament, a Hezbollah-affiliated legislature that negotiates on behalf of the group.

A US official told CBS News that Hochstein would “pursue a lasting settlement that will bring a sustainable end to the conflict.”

Margaret Brennan contributed to this report.