Friday's attack came as Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian visited Beirut, and hours after Syria said it downed two drones near Damascus that it said entered its airspace from the Golan.
Hezbollah fighters targeted an Israeli army barracks "in the occupied Syrian Golan with dozens of Katyusha rockets," the group said in a statement.
It had already claimed a number of other attacks on Friday on Israeli targets including "spy equipment" and a tank.
Since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas
...a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...on October 7, the Leb
...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
-Israel border has seen near-daily exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.
The latest salvo came after Hezbollah said it fired dozens of Katyusha rockets at northern Israel late Thursday in reponse to an Israeli dronezap which seriously maimed a Hezbollah commander in the south Lebanon city of Nabatiyeh.
The Israeli military said that fighter jets struck a "military site" where Hezbollah fighters were operating in Maroun al-Ras and "military compounds" in two other south Lebanon towns.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported Israeli bombardment of multiple locations in the south.
Recent weeks have seen a flurry of diplomatic activity in the Lebanese capital, as Britannia, La Belle France and Germany have all sent their foreign minister to appeal for a return to calm on the border.
Concerns have been growing that the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
conflict might trigger a full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah like that of 2006.
During four months of cross-border fire, at least 228 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also including 27 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, 15 people have been killed, six of them civilians, according to the Israeli army.
Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community.
| The Times of Israel’s take: |
The rockets triggered rocket sirens in northern communities including Kiryat Shmona.
Most of the rockets were either shot down by the Iron Dome missile defense system or were allowed to land in open areas.
There were no reports of injuries or damage.
Hezbollah grabbed credit for the barrage, saying it fired dozens of Katyusha rockets. In a statement, the terror group claimed to have targeted the IDF’s Kela base in the Golan Heights, although the sirens sounded in communities some 15 kilometers (9 miles) away.
The IDF said it later struck a launcher used in the rocket barrage, in the south Lebanon village of Qalaat Debba. Fighter jets also hit another Hezbollah building in Khiam, the IDF added.
Earlier in the day, Israeli fighter jets carried out strikes against Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon, including a complex where the terror group’s operatives were gathered in Maroun al-Ras. The IDF said it also hit three more buildings used by Hezbollah in Yohmor and Naqoura.
On Thursday, Israeli Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar warned Hezbollah that Israel was prepared to significantly ratchet up its strikes against the terror group.
“Hezbollah will continue to pay with the loss of its systems. Dozens of aircraft are now operating in the skies of southern Lebanon, and as soon as the order is given, the dozens will turn into hundreds that will perform the missions within minutes of being scrambled,” Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar said at an internal IAF conference, according to a transcript published by the IDF.
Top Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened to go to war in Lebanon following the campaign to root out Hamas in Gaza, with the aim of driving Hezbollah away from the border in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006.
An apparent Israeli drone strike Thursday in southern Lebanon targeted two Hezbollah operatives, reportedly including a senior commander in the Lebanese terror group, following repeated missile attacks that left three IDF soldiers wounded — one seriously — and damaged a house near the border.
Video from the Lebanese town of Nabatieh, some 11 kilometers (7 miles) from Israel’s northern border, showed a car in flames after it was apparently struck from the air.
There was conflicting information about the Hezbollah members’ condition after the apparent strike, with some reports saying one or both of them were killed. But a Lebanese security source told AFP that a senior operative was “seriously wounded and a companion was also injured.”
Sky News Arabic identified the high-ranking Hezbollah member as Abbas Al-Debes, while the other was not immediately named.
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