In the early hours of Sunday morning, Hezbollah launched approximately 150 rockets into northern Israel, most of which were intercepted, according to Israeli officials.
Hezbollah claims to have launched numerous Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles at the Ramat David airbase in Haifa. The operation came in response to the fatal two-day pager and walkie-talkie explosion campaign widely attributed to Israel, the group claimed on Telegram.
According to the Associated Press, one rocket caused damage near a residential building in Kiryat Bialik, a city near Haifa. Emergency medical services announced that one man was “lightly wounded by shrapnel from a missile,” according to Reuters. The Times of Israel reported two further injuries.
Around the same time, Israeli air defenses intercepted “two cruise missiles and two drones fired from Iraq, none of which hit Israeli territory,” the military claimed via the Times of Israel. Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq have sporadically attacked Israel and American positions throughout the region.
On Friday, Israel conducted an airstrike targeting a Beirut neighborhood, killing a senior Hezbollah terrorist and at least thirteen others in one of the most intense assaults on the Lebanese capital in decades. Since 2023, the U.S. State Department has had a $7 million reward in place for information leading to the capture of Ibrahim Akil for his role in the 1983 Beirut bombings in which hundreds of Americans were murdered.
Akil was neutralized in an Israeli air strike that brought down an eight-story building where Hezbollah members were reportedly gathered. Israeli President Isaac Herzog claimed the meeting intended to plan an October 7-Hamas-like attack on Israel’s northern Galilee region by the Lebanese terror outfit.
“We don’t want this war,” said Herzog. “We absolutely did not seek this war.”
“This war was instigated by the empire of evil, by the Iranian proxies in the region, under the command of Iran.”
The two sides further exchanged artillery fire on Saturday, with Israel launching nearly 300 projectiles in a preemptive action against what the military claimed was to be a planned Hezbollah assault.
Many fear the weekend’s escalations may engulf the region in a broader war. Israel and Hezbollah’s last significant engagement came in 2006 which left over 1,000 Lebanese and over 150 Israelis dead.
Hezbollah published a nine-and-a-half-minute-long clip of aerial drone footage it captured back in June, disturbing many Israelis. The video included some of Haifa’s most sensitive seaports and strategic zones.
Haifa is Israel’s third-largest city, regarded as its northern capital with a large Arab population. Hezbollah rockets were also intercepted near Nazareth on Sunday, almost entirely inhabited by Arabs.