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Israel intercepted a Hezbollah rocket attack and hit a launch facility in Lebanon.
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Hezbollah targeted Tel Aviv and said the attack was intended to support Palestinians in Gaza.
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It follows days of fighting that left more than 500 dead and thousands of people evacuated in Lebanon.
Hezbollah fired a rocket into Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning, in what is believed to be its deepest attack on Israel to date.
The Israeli military said it intercepted the ballistic missile after it was detected from Lebanon and hit the launch site in the Nafakhiyeh area of Lebanon.
No deaths or injuries were reported and residents took cover before the attack was thwarted. The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Iranian-backed militant group claimed responsibility for the attempted Qader-1 missile attack, saying it targeted the headquarters of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, “in support of our steadfast Palestinian people in Gaza” and in “defense of Lebanon and its people.”
It comes after days of escalating fighting between Israel and the Lebanon-based militant group, with fears growing that the conflict could escalate into a an outright war.
More than 500 people were killed and 1,800 others were wounded after Israel carried out attacks on the militant group on Monday and Tuesday, Lebanese authorities said.
According to the Israeli military, this included Ibrahim Mohammed Kobeissi, the commander of Hezbollah’s missile network.
It was the highest number of deaths and injuries since the months-long conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, The Journal reported.
Last week, portable radios and pagers A bomb used by Hezbollah exploded across Lebanon in what is believed to be an Israeli-coordinated attack, killing 37 people and wounding about 3,000, officials said.
Meanwhile, thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in southern Lebanon to prevent further attacks.
“I say to the people of Lebanon: Our war is not with you. Our war is with Hezbollah,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech.
“I told you yesterday that you have to evacuate houses where there is a rocket in the living room and a rocket in the garage. Anyone who doesn’t do that will no longer have a home,” he added.
The conflict arose when Hezbollah fired rockets in response to Hamas’s Terrorist Attacks on Southern Israel in October 2023.
“Whatever Israel is planning to do with this series of attacks on Hezbollah, this is not what de-escalation looks like,” said Eugene Rogan, professor of modern Middle Eastern history at the University of Oxford. previously told Business Insider.
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