Israeli Military Continues Intensive Strikes On Southern Lebanon, Says Hezbollah Was Preparing To Fire On Israel
The strikes were reported by the Israeli military, which said that it struck Hezbollah “intensely” after it detected the group was preparing to fire toward Israeli territory.
BEIRUT - Israel carried out large-scale raids and airstrikes within Lebanon Saturday and flew reconnaissance aircraft at low altitudes over Lebanon’s capital Beirut, and other regions within the country, even as far north as Hermel, as Hezbollah fired Katyusha rockets into northern Israel.
The strikes were reported by the Israeli military, which said that it struck Hezbollah “intensely” after it detected the group was preparing to fire toward Israeli territory.
Lebanese media said that at least 70 airstrikes were carried out by Israeli aircraft within a single hour on locations that included forests, valleys, hills and riverbeds, and reached locations that were around 19 miles from Israel’s border with Lebanon.
The locations reported to have been targeted within Lebanon included:
Zawtar
Deir Seryan
Qotrani
Rihan Heights
Mahmoudiyeh
The Litani River (Khardali)
Sohmor-Libbaya
Tayr Harfa
Between Zrariyeh and Ansar
Between Kounine and Aainata
Mays Al-Jabal
Alma Al-Shaab
Iqlim Al-Tuffah Heights
Between Deir Al-Zahrani and Roumine
Wadi Al-Numairiyeh
The Hezbollah group said that Israel had targeted a meeting of the group’s elite Radwan Force leaders with an airstrike on a 8 story residential building (with two additional levels underground) in Jarmous, Beirut and released a list of 17 senior Hezbollah members the groups said were killed.
Aside from the Hezbollah members, civilians were also reported to have been killed in the Israeli strike on the residential building.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health said that the death toll from the strike currently stands at 31, including 3 children and 7 women, with 68 others injured, though death toll figures released by the Ministry have been recently contested:
The Hezbollah said that it responded by firing Katyusha rockets, targeting “the Air and Missile Defense Headquarters at Kela barracks,” as well as the “command headquarters of the Sahel Battalion at Beit Hillel barracks,” the “positioning center of the 631st Reconnaissance Battalion of the Golani Brigade in the Ramot Naftali barracks,” and the Zar’it barracks.
The Israeli military reported that, “rockets fell in the Adamit area in Western Galilee and in the Birya area near Safed, and the rocket barrages fired from southern Lebanon targeted the Golan Heights, Safed, and the Hula Valley.”
Hezbollah stated that one of whom was killed, Ibrahim Aqil was a founding member of the organization that “took charge of Hezbollah’s central training in the early 1990s and of the Islamic Resistance’s General Staff in the mid-1990s, and led the Jabal Amel Operations Unit from 1997 to 2000”.
“As of 2008, he served as the deputy secretary-general for Operations, overseeing the establishment, development, and leadership of the Radwan Force until his martyrdom.”
According to Israeli radio on Saturday, “A reliable intelligence source conveyed information regarding a meeting of the leaders of the Radwan Force, which prompted the Israeli military to carry out an assassination operation in the southern suburbs of Beirut.”
Israeli Military: IDF Striking Southern Lebanon Intensely Following Detection Hezbollah Was Preparing To Fire Toward Israeli Territory:
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