Large strikes in Beirut target Hezbollah; surface-to-surface missiles fired at Haifa

The Israel Defense Forces continued its campaign of airstrikes in Lebanon on Sunday, with the military saying it carried out a series of pinpoint attacks on Hezbollah targets in Beirut overnight, including several weapons depots and other terror infrastructure.

The strikes caused large fireballs and huge plumes of smoke in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital. Smoke was still billowing from the site after dawn. The Lebanese health ministry did not release information on casualties.

The strikes reportedly targeted a building near a road leading to Lebanon’s international airport and another formerly used by the Hezbollah-run broadcaster Al-Manar.

The military said the strikes were preceded by extensive steps to avoid harm to civilians, including advance warning.

The IDF accused Hezbollah of placing its arms storage and production sites under residential buildings in the Lebanese capital, endangering the population, and vowed to keep striking Hezbollah’s military assets in full force.

The Lebanese health ministry said Sunday that Israeli strikes killed 23 people across the country a day earlier. An additional 93 were wounded, the ministry said, without including casualties in the airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs after midnight. The health ministry figures did not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

The military said one airstrike killed Hezbollah’s company commander in the southern Lebanese village of Kafr Kila, who was responsible for a deadly anti-tank missile attack in January. Hader Ali Tawil was behind the attack that killed Barak Ayalon, 45, and his mother Miri Ayalon, 76, when an anti-tank missile slammed into their home in Kfar Yuval, the IDF said.

The strikes came amid continued rocket fire and drone launches from Lebanon at northern Israel on Sunday.

Two missiles fired at the northern coastal plain were shot down by air defenses, the military said. The surface-to-surface missiles triggered sirens between Haifa and Hadera along the coast.

There were no reports of injuries or damage in the attack.

Additionally, several suspected drones launched from Lebanon were shot down by Israeli air defenses, the IDF said.

According to the military, the “suspicious aerial targets” did not cross into Israeli airspace.

On Saturday, over 110 rockets were fired at northern Israel from Lebanon, with an additional 30 fired in an overnight barrage at Kiryat Shmona.

Fighting continued in southern Lebanon as the IDF issued new evacuation alerts for residents of around 25 areas in southern Lebanon, calling on them to head immediately north of the Awali River.

Meanwhile, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati called for “pressure on Israel” for a ceasefire as Hezbollah continued to fire rockets and launch drones at Israel. Mikati said he backed US and French efforts for a truce.

Lebanon said the start of the new school year was being postponed until November 4 due to the escalation in fighting.

Education Minister Abbas Halabi said the start date for more than one million students would be delayed because of “security risks.”

Israel says it has widened operations against Hezbollah to enable the safe return to their homes in the north of some 60,000 Israeli civilians who were evacuated when the Iran-backed terror group began firing rockets on October 8. Hezbollah said the attacks were in support of the Palestinians in Gaza amid the war sparked by Hamas’s devastating onslaught a day earlier.

So far, the skirmishes in the north have resulted in 26 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, and — excluding the soldiers killed in the ground operation — the deaths of 22 IDF soldiers and reservists.

Two soldiers have been killed in a drone attack from Iraq, and there have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.

The IDF’s toll in the ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon stands at nine.

Hezbollah has named 516 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. Another 94 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have also been killed.

These numbers have not been consistently updated since Israel began a new offensive against Hezbollah in September, including a ground operation in which the military says at least 440 Hezbollah operatives have been killed.

Source » timesofisrael.com