Hezbollah launches rocket attacks on central Israel after deadly Haifa strike
Hezbollah has launched several rocket and drone attacks at Israel in the past two days.
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Hezbollah group launched a barrage of rockets in central Israel on Monday, a day after claiming a deadly drone attack near Haifa.
In a statement, the Iran-backed group said its fighters fired “a salvo of rockets” at the Beit Lid military base east of Netanya. The Israeli military said that the rockets fired from Lebanon toward central Israel, setting off sirens in the Netanya and Wadi Ara areas, were all intercepted.
No injuries or casualties were reported.
Hezbollah claimed in another statement Monday to have launched a series of rockets at the Stella Maris Israeli naval base northwest of Haifa, saying the attack was “at the service” of Hassan Nasrallah, the group's leader who was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs last month. The Israeli military has not commented on the claim.
The latest barrages of rockets come nearly two weeks after Israel began a limited ground invasion in south Lebanon, marking a major escalation in the war in Lebanon. The Israeli military has intensified its airstrikes against Hezbollah targets across the country for the past three weeks, a year after cross-border hostilities erupted on Oct. 8, 2023.
Since then, more than 2,300 people have been killed in Lebanon and over 10,600 others injured, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. The Israeli military says hundreds of Hezbollah fighters and senior commanders have been killed since last year, including Nasrallah's potential successor Hashem Safieddine.
On Monday, the military announced the killing of Muhammad Kamel Naim, the commander of Hezbollah's anti-tank missile unit within its elite Radwan unity, in a strike in the southern city of Nabatieh.
On Sunday night, Hezbollah said it launched a “squadron of kamikaze drones” at the Golani military base in Binyamina, south of Haifa, in retaliation for Israeli strikes in Beirut, including one last Thursday that killed at least 22 people. The group added that it simultaneously launched rockets to “overwhelm” Israeli air defenses.
In a statement on Monday, the Israeli military said four soldiers were killed in the drone attack on the Golani military base, the deadliest strike inside Israel in three weeks, and eight others were seriously injured. Israel’s ambulance service, Magen David Adom, said 61 people were injured.
At least 54 people in Israel have been killed in rocket attacks since last October, according to Israeli authorities, nearly half of them soldiers.
