Cross-border exchanges escalated sharply over the weekend after Israel staggered Hizbollah by exploding thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies of its operatives and staging an airstrike in southern Beirut that killed several key leaders.
Hizbollah fired four barrages of over 150 rockets, cruise missiles and explosive-laden drones early yesterday morning into northern Israel. Air raid sirens were sounded in northern Israel’s Galilee region, the Jezreel Valley and the port city of Haifa.
Six Israelis were wounded. A teenage driver was killed in an accident, reportedly when he panicked upon hearing air raid sirens.
Hizbollah announced the attack was targeting Ramat David air base, an important installation 12 miles from Haifa.
The strikes were Iran-backed Hizbollah’s deepest into Israel since it began regular cross-border fire a day after Iran-backed, Gaza-based Hamas staged its murderous raid into Israel last 7 October.
Israel responded with heavy air strikes against Hizbollah positions in southern Lebanon.
Over the weekend and last week Israeli jets hit hundreds of Hizbollah rocket launchers and a weapons storage facilities y in southern Lebanon.
On Friday, an Israeli missile strike on a building in the southern Beirut suburb of Jamous killed 16 senior Hizbollah commanders. Among the dead was Ibrahim Aqil, commander of the group’s elite Radwan Force.
Aqil had reportedly replaced Faud Shukr as Hizbollah’s most senior military commander. Shukr was killed on 30 July in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut.
Israeli airstrikes in Beirut and elsewhere in recent days have killed numerous Lebanese civilians in addition to Hizbollah fighters.
The pager and walkie-talkie explosions reportedly killed 32 and wounded 3,500, including top Hizbollah commanders and Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon.
Reports suggest that Israeli intelligence intercepted thousands of pagers and handheld radios bound for Hizbollah, placing a small amount of explosive material inside each device along with a detonator.
Having devastated Hizbollah’s communications network, Israel is following up by degrading its leadership in targeted strikes and rocket and missile stocks in broad aerial bombing.
A reprisal from Hizbollah is all but guaranteed once it rebuilds its communications network.
Hizbollah conceivably could use its large arsenal of accurate missiles, rockets and drones to strike military and civilian targets throughout the Jewish state.
Israel, under pressure to return some 60,000 evacuees to northern communities, repeatedly has threatened a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, which would trigger all-out war.
Tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians also have fled the border region.
Personnel in Israel should remain south of Haifa and north of Ashdod and stay close to bomb shelters.
No travel whatsoever should be undertaken to Lebanon.
