Israel claims its warplanes hit more than 100 Hezbollah rocket launchers and other sites including an arms depot in southern Lebanon.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the launchers were ready to fire at Israel.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that Israel had carried out at least 52 strikes in the south of the country on Thursday night, and that Lebanon had also launched strikes on military sites in northern Israel.
Earlier, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the deadly blasts earlier this week “crossed all red lines”, accusing Israel of what he said amounted to a declaration of war.
Israel has not said it was behind the attacks – in which pagers and walkie-talkies exploded simultaneously across the country – on Tuesday and Wednesday, which Lebanese authorities said killed 37 people and wounded 3,000.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel was entering a “new phase of the war,” focusing more of its efforts on the north.
Previously sporadic cross-border fighting escalated on October 8, 2023. Since then, hundreds of people, mostly Hezbollah fighters, have been killed in cross-border fighting, and tens of thousands have also been displaced on both sides of the border.
In a statement late Thursday, the IDF said its warplanes attacked “approximately 100 launchers and additional locations of terrorist infrastructure, consisting of approximately 1,000 tubes that were ready to be used in the near future to target Israeli territory.”
“The IDF will continue to operate to degrade the infrastructure and capabilities of the terrorist organization Hezbollah and to defend the State of Israel,” the statement said.
Lebanese security sources cited by the Reuters news agency and the New York Times said the Israeli strikes were among the most intense since the start of the Gaza war in October last year.
The IDF also urged residents of northern Israel near the Lebanese border to avoid large gatherings, guard their neighborhoods and stay close to bomb shelters.
On Thursday morning, Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon fired two anti-tank rockets across the border, followed by drones. The IDF said two Israeli soldiers were killed and a third was seriously wounded, Klix.ba writes.
E.Dz.
Photo: liveuamap
