Hezbollah targeted 11 Israeli military sites with hundreds of missiles and drones
Lebanon’s Hezbollah said, it had completed the first phase of its response to the assassination of senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr in an air strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs last month.
Hezbollah targeted 11 Israeli military sites on Sunday and launched more than 320 Katyusha rockets in addition to drones into northern Israel.
Shortly before Hezbollah’s attacks, Israeli warplanes bombed targets in Lebanon after the military estimated that Hezbollah was preparing to fire shells and rockets toward Israel.
Sirens sounded in northern Israel and explosions were heard around several areas as Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system shot down rockets coming from southern Lebanon.
The Israeli Army Radio said that 100 Israeli warplanes participated in an attack targeting more than 200 sites in Lebanon at dawn on Sunday.
The IDF Radio quoted unnamed military officials as saying, “Hezbollah planned to launch an attack with hundreds of rockets and missiles towards the center of the country at 5:00.”
“About half an hour ago — around 4:30 — the preemptive air strike, which included about 100 fighter jets, began, thwarting the threat within minutes and preventing a large-scale attack on the country,” the officials added.
They continued, “More than 200 targets were attacked in a short period of time in southern Lebanon”.
In the same context, an Israeli source claimed that the attack on Lebanon, at dawn on Sunday, stopped a major attack planned by Hezbollah on strategic facilities in the center of the country.
The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation quoted the unnamed source as saying, “Hezbollah’s attack was planned to target strategic facilities in central Israel,” without further details.
In this regard, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant informed his US counterpart Lloyd Austin in a phone call that the Israeli attack had stopped Hezbollah’s attack.
“We carried out precision strikes in Lebanon in order to thwart an imminent threat against Israeli citizens… We’re closely following developments in Beirut, and we are determined to use all means at our disposal to defend our citizens”.
Galant and Austin discussed the importance of avoiding regional escalation, as Galant stressed that the Israeli defense establishment is determined to defend the citizens of Israel and will use all means at its disposal to eliminate imminent threats, according to the Israeli Broadcasting Authority, that also indicated that Israel had informed Washington in advance of the attack.
For its part, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a written statement, “Foreign Minister Israel Katz sent a direct message this morning to dozens of foreign ministers around the world, calling on them to support Israel.”
“Foreign Minister Katz explained that Israel acted after it had definitely detected a planned large-scale attack with missiles and drones by Hezbollah against targets in Israel,” the statement added.
For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged on Sunday to do everything to restore security in the north of the “Jewish state” after the army announced it had launched strikes in Lebanon to prevent a major attack by Hezbollah.
“We’re determined to do everything to protect our country and return the residents of the north safely to their homes, and to continue to follow a simple rule: whoever hurts us, we will hurt him,” Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office.
