Pro-Iranian Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah says military sites were the main target of hundreds of rockets fired into Israel earlier on Sunday. The rockets were intended as revenge for the killing of one of the movement’s top commanders.
“The target should not be a civilian enemy or infrastructure,” Nasrallah said in a speech describing the long-awaited revenge attacks. “One of the characteristics (of the targets) is that they must be linked to the assassination operation.”
Israeli forces and the pro-Iranian militia Hezbollah engaged in large-scale gun battles early Sunday morning along the Israel-Lebanon border.
Israel was preparing for a larger attack after the killing of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut on July 30. Nasrallah said the delayed response was also a punishment for the Israeli enemy.
Hezbollah said it had fired more than 320 rockets, while Israel estimated the number at 200 rockets and about 20 drones.
The Israeli military, meanwhile, said it had carried out dozens of pre-emptive airstrikes in southern Lebanon. Lebanese security sources said Israel had struck at least 40 targets in southern Lebanon. After more than an hour of bombardment, the situation appeared to have calmed down, they added.
Two people were wounded in the Israeli strikes and another was killed in a drone strike, Lebanon’s health ministry said. The country’s interim prime minister, Najib Mikati, called a meeting of his emergency cabinet at his Beirut residence in response to the attack.
Nasrallah added that he had to be careful in choosing the location of the strike to give negotiations to end the war in Gaza a chance. He added that one of the targeted bases was “very deep” inside Israeli territory, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.
After this first phase, attacks by the movement’s allies, Iran and the Houthi militia in Yemen continue.
Nasrallah said it was the first time Hezbollah had fired drones from the Bekaa in eastern Lebanon. He also said the posts hit by Israeli airstrikes on Sunday were empty.
According to Nasrallah, only three fighters were killed in the Israeli strikes. The Israeli army reported that one soldier was killed in Israel. Local media reported that the 21-year-old soldier was hit by parts of an Israeli defense missile on a navy boat.
Hezbollah is considered Iran’s main non-state ally in the Middle East and the most heavily armed non-state group in the region.
Since the war in Gaza began ten months ago, Hezbollah fighters and the Israeli army have carried out almost daily shelling, killing dozens of civilians on both sides of the border.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant earlier declared a 48-hour state of emergency across Israel in response to what he called a growing security threat.
Restrictions on civilian movement in the Tel Aviv area up to the northern border with Lebanon were lifted later Sunday afternoon, Hagari announced. No further major gun battles were reported during the day.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi militia has welcomed Hezbollah’s attack on Israel and said its own attack would come “inevitably.”
The Houthis’ political office congratulated Hezbollah and Nasrallah for what it called a “great and courageous attack” and a “strong and effective response” to Israel, the Yemeni militia’s al-Masirah television channel reported.
