The Lebanese Shiite group “Hezbollah“ announced that it fired a salvo of rockets at a military base deep inside Israeli territory in the wee hours of the night after an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon yesterday killed 37 people, including one of the organization's top commanders, as well as women and children, the Associated Press reported. quoted by BTA.
It is still unclear whether the missiles hit their targets. Israeli emergency services said one person was slightly injured by shrapnel from a rocket intercepted over a village in the Lower Galilee.
Local media reported that rockets fired from Lebanon were intercepted near Haifa and Nazareth. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported only that they tracked the launch of “about ten rockets” from the neighboring country, most of which were intercepted.
„Hezbollah“ announced that it had launched “dozens of “Fadi-1“ and “Fadi-2“ – a new type of weapon that the group has not used before – at Ramat David military airport, located southeast of Haifa, “in response to the constant Israeli attacks directed at various parts of Lebanon, resulting in the death of many civilian martyrs”.
In July, the group released a video it claimed showed the base being photographed by reconnaissance drones.
Israel and “Hezbollah“ exchanged blows yesterday as rescue teams in Beirut searched the rubble of an apartment building in the capital's southern suburbs that was destroyed on Friday by an Israeli strike. According to the IDF, Hezbollah members were gathering in the basement of the eight-story building, and among those killed was Ibrahim Akil, a senior Hezbollah official who commanded the group's special forces unit.
Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad told reporters last night that at least seven women and three children were killed in the airstrike that destroyed the building the previous day.
This is the deadliest attack on Beirut since the bloody month-long war in 2006 between Israel and “Hezbollah” and the death toll could rise, with 23 people still missing, a government official said.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant said the attack disrupted the group's chain of command, adding that the slain Akil was responsible for the deaths of Israelis. The commander of the special forces of “Hezbollah” wanted for years by the US for his alleged role in the bombing of the US embassy in Beirut in 1983 and the kidnapping of American and German hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan called Akil's death “a good result”. “You know, 1983 is supposed to be a long time ago, but many people, many families are still living with the consequences every day,”, he stated.
Anticipating an increase in Hezbollah rocket attacks, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an IDF spokesman, announced updated safety guidelines for areas north of Haifa, including restrictions on gatherings of 30 people outdoors and 300 indoors.
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