Beirut- Hezbollah targeted an Israeli naval base on Monday, a day after a drone strike killed four soldiers and injured sixty others in the deadliest attack on Israel since the war in Gaza began last year.
The group said its fighters launched rockets at a naval base near Haifa in northern Israel, calling it a tribute to its leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
The Israeli military said on Monday it had intercepted another launch aimed at a training camp at Binyamina, also near Haifa, a day after four soldiers were killed and sixty more wounded in a Hezbollah drone strike.
On Sunday, Hezbollah had threatened more attacks if Israel continued its attacks on Lebanon, warning Israel what it saw was “nothing compared to what awaits it if it decides to continue its aggression.”
Meanwhile, the former chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) warned Israel of “tough days” as the Lebanese resistance movement restores its combat power to counter Israeli aggression.
“After witnessing a wave of assassinations, Hezbollah has repaired its combat organization,” Major General Mohsen Rezaei, who is currently a member of Iran’s Expediency Council, wrote in an X post on Monday.
“Now the war mode of Hezbollah has started operating and [thus] tough days await the Zionists.”
Meanwhile the Pentagon has announced the deployment of an advanced anti-missile defence system, the THAAD, to Israel. The move aimed at bolstering Israel’s air defences following recent missile attacks from Iran and increasing hostilities in the region. Alongside the THAAD battery, approximately 100 US troops are being deployed in Israel to operate the system.
THAAD, designed to intercept ballistic missiles, adds another layer of protection to Israel’s existing defence infrastructure, potentially helping mitigate future missile threats from Iran or its proxies.
The US presence is intended to not only defend Israel but also provide a strategic advantage as Israel contemplates retaliatory action against Iran.
Earlier Israel’s military acknowledged a Hezbollah drone has killed four soldiers and injured sixty others at one of its northern bases.
The surprise attack on elite Golani Brigades camp in Binyamina, near Haifa, was the deadliest such assault on an Israeli base since war in Gaza started last October.
The strike was in response to Israeli attacks, including air strikes on Thursday that Lebanon’s health ministry said killed at least 22 civilians in central Beirut.
In a later statement, Hezbollah warned Israel that “what it witnessed today in southern Haifa is nothing compared to what awaits it if it decides to continue its aggression against our noble and dear people.”
An Israeli volunteer rescue service, United Hatzalah, said its teams in Binyamina assisted “over 60 wounded people” with injuries ranging from mild to critical.
Hezbollah has been firing rockets and drones into Israel for more than a year in support of fighters in Gaza.
Since late September, however, its strikes have reached further into the country.
Israel’s sophisticated air defenses have intercepted most of the projectiles, with few casualties caused by strikes or falling debris.
Israel Threatens UN forces
And as fighting raged between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon’s south, United Nations peacekeepers said they had again been in the firing line.
They said Israeli troops “forcibly” entered a UN position with two tanks, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the multinational peace force to withdraw from the area immediately.
Israel’s military said a tank had backed into the UN post while under fire and UN called it a possible war crime.
How Hezbollah Struck the Base
A Hezbollah drone hoodwinked Israel’s much-vaunted Iron Dome air-defence system and struc the heavily fortified base. A worried Israel has launched a probe into how its air-defence system was penetrated rather easily. There are two reasons why it is likely that the Iron Dome, so effective against rockets, missed the drone fired from Lebanon by Hezbollah.
The drone that evaded the Iron Dome and dealt a blow is believed to be Mirsad-1, according to a report.The Times of Israel reported that two drones fired from the sea entered Israeli airspace on Sunday.
“Both were Mirsad drones, known in Iran as the Ababil-T. The model is Hezbollah’s main suicide drone, and their use was not unique or unprecedented,” the Israeli media outlet reported.
It was reported that it was one of the two Mirsad-1 drones that evaded the air-defence system on Sunday night.
The Mirsad-1 drone has a range of 120 km and a top speed of 370 km per hour, it quoted the Alma Center, an Israeli research institute. The drone can carry payload (explosives) of up to 40kg, and can fly as high as 3,000 metres, it added.
The Jerusalem Post said that Mirsad-1 was a drone that Hezbollah had deployed for over two decades, and it was based on Iranian designs.This isn’t the first time that Hezbollah drones have entered Israeli airspace undetected.
On April 11, a Hezbollah drone flew undetected for nine minutes over “Western Galilee cities and settlements before returning safely to southern Lebanon”, reported the Defence Industry Daily. It said it was Israeli locals who reported sighting the drone.
The Times of Israel reported that Israeli planes and helicopters pursued the other drone, but it fell off the radar system and the IDF lost track of it.
Hezbollah said in a statement that the “fighters of the Islamic Resistance targeted (for the fifth time) a gathering of Israeli enemy forces in the Manara settlement with a rocket barrage.”
“The fighters of the Islamic Resistance targeted a gathering of Israeli enemy forces at the Hounin barracks with a barrage of rockets,” Hezbollah said.
It added that “the fighters of the Islamic Resistance targeted movements of the zionist forces near the Fatima Gate in the town of Kfar Kila with artillery shells at 10:00 PM on Sunday, October 13, 2024.”
Hezbollah said its operations were conducted in support of Palestinians in Gaza and in defense of Lebanon.
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