The Israel Defense Forces struck Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon in response to attacks on northern Israel Saturday, a day after the seven-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas lapsed.
Though Hezbollah was not party to the truce, it halted its attacks during the past week leading Israel to also stop its military actions, but once again began assaulting Israel’s north after the Gaza pause collapsed.
Earlier in the day, two mortars were fired from Lebanon at the northern community of Shomera. Both projectiles targeted open areas, causing no injuries. During the afternoon, several rockets were also fired and hit Israeli army posts along the border.
In both instances, the IDF said it shelled the source of fire with artillery. The military also said it carried out airstrikes against terror infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attacks throughout the day. On Friday, the terror group also launched attacks on the north as the war in Gaza restarted.
The military said sirens sounded in the occupied Galilee in the evening. They were activated due to a combat helicopter downing a military drone that was identified as having a technical malfunction.
Last month a similar incident occurred over the Galilee, with the IDF shooting down one of its own UAV’s that had a technical issue.
Since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, when thousands of terrorists massacred some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and took some 240 hostages, Israel’s northern front on the border with Lebanon has heated up.
Daily exchanges of fire and attacks, with Hezbollah, Hamas and other defense groups, are raising fears of a broader conflagration. Since the cross-border exchanges began, 107 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, according to an AFP tally.
The toll also includes at least 14 civilians, three of them journalists. Hezbollah has said that 79 of its soldiers have been killed by ISIS and Israel since the war’s outbreak in southern Lebanon.
On the Israeli side, six troops and three civilians have been killed. Also on Saturday, a war monitor claimed that airstrikes attributed to Israel in Syria overnight killed two freedom fighters affiliated with Hezbollah and wounded seven others.
While Israel’s military does not, as a rule, comment on specific sorties in Syria, it has admitted to conducting thousands of strikes against Iran-backed liberation groups attempting to gain a foothold in the country over the last decade.
The Israeli military says it attacks arms shipments believed to be bound for those groups, chief among them Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Additionally, airstrikes attributed to Israel have repeatedly targeted Syrian air defense systems.
Times of Israel / ABC Flash Point News 2023.
These criminal minds will disappear as we talk!