HEZBOLLAH FIRE DOZENS OF ROCKETS AT ISRAEL AFTER FIGHTER KILLED

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A day after the group’s commander delivered an enraged speech, Hezbollah claimed to have launched “dozens” of rockets into northern Israel on Thursday in retribution for a deadly strike in south Lebanon.

Since the Palestinian terrorist group’s attack on Israel on October 7, which sparked a conflict in the Gaza Strip, Israel and Hezbollah, a potent Lebanese force associated with Hamas, have engaged in almost daily cross-border gunfire.

As Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened the neighboring island nation of Cyprus if it opened its airports to Israel on Wednesday, raising fears of a regional conflict, he issued a warning that “no place” in Israel would be spared in the event of an all-out war against his party.

Hezbollah stated on Thursday that fighters hit an Israeli barracks “with dozens of Katyusha rockets” “in response to the assassination that the Israeli enemy carried out in the village of Deir Kifa.”

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An “enemy drone” struck a car in the Deir Kifa neighborhood in south Lebanon, according to the official National News Agency of Lebanon, which claimed one death.

Hezbollah declared the death of one of their fighters. He was murdered in the Deir Kifa strike, an anonymous source close to the organization informed AFP.

He was “responsible for planning and carrying out terror attacks against Israel and commanding Hezbollah ground forces” in south Lebanon’s Jouaiyya area, according to the Israeli military, which claimed an air strike “eliminated” a Hezbollah operative in the Deir Kifa area.

Elsewhere, Israeli fighter jets struck “a Hezbollah surface-to-air missile launcher that posed a threat to aircraft operating over Lebanon”, the army statement added.

The exchanges between the foes, which last went to war in 2006, have escalated in recent weeks, and the Israeli military said Tuesday that “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon were approved and validated”.

After the Hezbollah leader’s threats against Cyprus, Lebanon’s foreign ministry said Thursday that “relations between Lebanon and Cyprus are based on a rich history of diplomatic cooperation”.

Contacts and consultations continue between the two countries “at the highest levels”, a foreign ministry statement said, without making specific reference to Nasrallah’s remarks.

The cross-border violence has killed at least 479 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including 93 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israeli authorities say at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed in the country’s north.

AFP