Hezbollah fired some 50 rockets at the Galilee before dawn on Sunday, after the Israeli Air Force struck a terrorist site deep inside Lebanon.
The rocket barrage was one of the biggest since Hezbollah initiated a low-intensity conflict against the Jewish state in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre of some 1,200 people in the northwestern Negev.
Israeli air defenses intercepted several of the rockets and the rest hit open areas, the IDF said. There were no reports of injuries or damages.
In response, IAF craft struck a series of sites in Southern Lebanon from which some of the projectiles were fired.
Just after midnight on Sunday, IAF jets struck a weapons manufacturing plant in Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold northeast of Beirut in the Beqaa Valley, about 60 miles from the border with Israel.
מטוסי קרב תקפו מוקדם יותר הלילה סדנא ובה אמצעי לחימה של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב בעלבכ.
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) March 23, 2024
בנוסף, לפני זמן קצר זוהו כחמישים שיגורים משטח לבנון לשטח ישראל, מספר שיגורים יורטו והשאר נפלו בשטחים פתוחים. בסגירת מעגל מהירה, כלי טיס תקפו את המשגרים מהם זוהו חלק מהשיגורים לשטח ישראל pic.twitter.com/w2yLr0qriR
عاجل| مراسل المنار: غارات جوية إسرائيلية تستهدف منطقة العسيرة في مدينة بعلبك شرق لبنان. pic.twitter.com/b9cJSLyxQ0
— Alhadath Newspaper|صحيفة الحدث الفلسطيني (@Alhadath_news1) March 23, 2024
On Friday, the IDF Home Front Command issued an alert for the Western Galilee about the intrusion of a hostile drone from Lebanon. The IAF’s air-defense system shot it down.
Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon fired several projectiles at the Metula area in the Eastern Galilee throughout the day, to which the IDF responded by striking the sources of fire.
Israeli fighter jets also struck a Hezbollah military compound in the area of Ayta ash Shab in Southern Lebanon.
On Wednesday, the IDF once again provided visual proof that Hezbollah operates from within residential areas, showing footage of an airstrike on a weapons depot “in the heart of a civilian neighborhood deep in Lebanon.”
The IDF accused the Iranian terrorist proxy of deliberately placing its weapons production infrastructure in the middle of civilian areas in Southern Lebanon, the Beqaa Valley and Beirut.
Using human shields is a war crime and is a tactic used by the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza and by other jihadist organizations.