Smoke rises after a rocket fired from southern Lebanon hits the Higher Galilee area of northern Israel on July 4, 2024. Lebanese Hezbollah claimed to have launched greater than 200 rockets and explosive drones at Israeli army positions on July 4, as tensions have soared amid the almost nine-month-old warfare in Gaza. | Picture credit score: AFP
Lebanese group Hezbollah mentioned it fired greater than 200 rockets on July 4 at a number of army bases in Israel in retaliation for an assault that killed one in all its prime commanders.
The assault by the Iranian-backed militant group was one of many largest within the months-long battle alongside the border between Lebanon and Israel, the place tensions have escalated in latest weeks.
The Israeli army mentioned “quite a few suspicious projectiles and aerial targets” had entered its territory from Lebanon, a lot of which it mentioned had been intercepted. There have been no rapid experiences of casualties.
It mentioned some 200 “projectiles” had been launched in direction of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and greater than 20 drones in direction of Israeli territory, however that it had intercepted a few of them.
Following the Hezbollah assault, Israel struck a number of cities in southern Lebanon. The Israeli army mentioned the strike had hit Hezbollah “army constructions” within the southern border cities of Ramyeh and Houla. Lebanon’s state-controlled Nationwide Information Company reported that an Israeli drone strike in Houla had killed a minimum of one particular person. Israeli plane additionally broke the sound barrier over the Lebanese capital and different areas of the nation.
Israel acknowledged on July 3 that it had killed Mohammad Naameh Nasser, who headed one in all Hezbollah’s three regional branches in southern Lebanon, a day earlier.
Hours after the assassination, Hezbollah launched dozens of Katyusha rockets and Falaq rockets with heavy warheads at northern Israel and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. On July 4, it launched extra rockets and mentioned it had additionally despatched explosive drones focusing on a number of bases.
Nasser was of nice significance to Hezbollah, which claimed he took half in battles in conflicts in Syria and Iraq from 2011 to 2016 and fought within the group’s final warfare with Israel in 2006. Two different senior Hezbollah commanders have additionally been killed.
The USA and France are nonetheless struggling to stop the preventing from escalating into an all-out warfare, which they concern might unfold to your complete area. In its shuttle diplomatic efforts, Washington had initially hoped to realize calm on the Lebanese-Israeli border by a deal not linked to the Gaza warfare. However since calling on Hamas to simply accept a ceasefire proposal put ahead by President Joe Biden, the USA has mentioned an finish to the Gaza warfare would additionally result in calm in Lebanon and northern Israel.
The comparatively low-intensity battle erupted shortly after the beginning of the Gaza warfare. Hezbollah says it’s attacking Israel in solidarity with Hamas, one other Iranian-allied group that sparked the Gaza warfare with its Oct. 7 assault in southern Israel. The group’s management says it is going to cease its assaults as soon as a ceasefire is reached in Gaza and that, whereas it doesn’t need warfare, it’s ready for it.
In the meantime, Israeli officers say they might resolve to go to warfare in Lebanon if efforts to discover a diplomatic answer fail.
Hezbollah’s retaliation comes a day after a senior adviser to US President Joe Biden, Amos Hochstein, met with French President Emmanuel Macron’s envoy to Lebanon, Jean-Yves Le Drian, in Paris.
The preventing has pressured tens of hundreds of individuals to flee on each side of the border. In northern Israel, 16 troopers and 11 civilians have been killed. In Lebanon, greater than 450 individuals have been killed, principally fighters but additionally dozens of civilians.
Israel views Hezbollah as its most direct menace and estimates it has an arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles, together with precision-guided missiles.
In 2006, Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long warfare that resulted in a draw.
