The pro-Iranian Hezbollah cheif Hassan Nasrallah says military sites were the main target of hundreds of missiles aimed at Israel earlier on Sunday to avenge the killing of one of the movement’s most senior commanders.
“The target should not be a civilian enemy or infrastructure,” Nasrallah said in a speech describing the long-anticipated revenge attacks. “One of the characteristics [of the targets] is that they should be linked to the assassination operation.”
Israeli forces and the pro-Iranian militia Hezbollah engaged in massive exchanges of fire across the border between Israel and Lebanon early on Sunday.
Israel had been bracing for a larger attack following the killing of Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut on July 30. Nasrallah said the delayed response was also a punishment for the Israeli enemy.
Hezbollah said it fired more than 320 missiles while Israel put the number at 200 missiles and about 20 drones.
The Israeli military meanwhile said it carried out dozens of pre-emptive airstrikes in southern Lebanon. Lebanese security sources said Israel had attacked at least 40 targets in southern Lebanon. After more than an hour of bombardment, the situation seemed to have calmed down, they added.
Two people were wounded in the Israeli strikes, and a drone strike killed one other person, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. The country’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, called a meeting of his crisis cabinet at his residence in Beirut in response to the attack.
Nasrallah added that he had to be careful with the choice of the location of the attack in order to give the negotiations to end the Gaza war a chance. He added on of the targeted bases was located “very deep” inside Israeli territory, at the outskirts of Tel Aviv.
After this first phase, attacks by the movement’s allies, Iran and the Houthi militia in Yemen, are still pending.
Nasrallah it is the first time Hezbollah launched drones from the Bekaa in eastern Lebanon. He also said that the posts hit by Israeli airstrikes on Sunday were empty.
According to Nasrallah only three fighters were killed in the Israeli strikes. The Israeli army said a soldier was killed in Israel. Local media reported the 21-year-old soldier was hit by parts of an Israeli defense missile on a navy boat.
Hezbollah is considered Iran’s most important non-state ally in the Middle East and the most heavily armed non-state group in the region.
Since the beginning of the Gaza war ten months ago, Hezbollah fighters and the Israel military have engaged in almost daily shelling, killing dozens of civilians on both sides of the border.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant earlier declared a 48-hour state of emergency across Israel, in response to what he said was an escalating security threat.
Restrictions on the movements of civilians in the area from Tel Aviv up to the northern border with Lebanon were lifted later on Sunday afternoon, Hagari announced. There were no further major exchanges of fire reported during the day.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi militia has hailed the Hezbollah attack against Israel and said their own attack is “inevitably coming.”
The Houthi political office congratulated Hezbollah and Nasrallah on what it called a “large and courageous attack” and a “strong and effective response” against Israel, the Yemeni militia’s mouthpiece television al-Masirah reported.
