“Dozens” of fighter jets are involved in the operation against Hezbollah targets, army spokesman Daniel Hagari said. “Over the past hour, we launched a full-scale attack in southern Lebanon after we detected Hezbollah’s preparations to bombard Israeli territory,” Hagari said.
Earlier on Saturday, the army announced that it had destroyed thousands of rocket launchers in southern Lebanon. They were ready “for immediate launch towards Israeli territory.” 180 Hezbollah targets were attacked. The Israeli armed forces also announced that the Hezbollah militia had fired around 90 rockets from Lebanon into Israel by late afternoon on Saturday.
High-ranking commander killed
Only on Friday, Israel killed a high-ranking commander of the pro-Iranian militia in its northern neighbor. In addition to Ibrahim Aqil, at least 15 other Hezbollah fighters were killed in the attack on a southern suburb of Beirut. Hezbollah announced that Ahmed Wahbi, a commander of Aqil’s elite Radwan unit, was also killed. Wahbi led the Radwan unit’s military operations in support of the radical Islamic Hamas between October 7 and the beginning of the year. The Lebanese Ministry of Health reported on Saturday that 37 people were killed in the attack, including three children and seven women.
According to Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari, the attack was aimed at commanders “who were involved in planning operations with anti-tank missiles, rocket fire and the planned invasion of Israeli territory.” According to Hagari, Aqil and the other Hezbollah commanders killed in the attack were planning an attack on northern Israel in which they “wanted to infiltrate Israeli communities and murder innocent civilians” like the radical Islamic Palestinian organization Hamas did on October 7.
USA expresses concern about escalation
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan expressed concern about an escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and satisfaction with the killing of its commander Ibrahim Aqil. Sullivan told reporters on Saturday that the US holds Akil responsible for the deaths of 300 people in the US embassy and a US barracks in Beirut in two bombings in 1983. “Whenever a terrorist who has murdered Americans is held accountable, that is a good result from our point of view.” However, the danger of escalation is real and acute.
After the killing of Aqil, the Israeli army assured on Friday that it was not seeking to escalate the conflict in Lebanon. “We are not aiming for a broad escalation in the region,” army spokesman Hagari told journalists. Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant wrote on the online service X that Israel’s “enemies” no longer had a “place of refuge.”
Hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies exploded
On Tuesday and Wednesday, hundreds of Hezbollah militia pagers and walkie-talkies exploded simultaneously in Lebanon. According to current information, 39 people were killed and around 3,000 others injured in the explosions, which occurred in two waves and are attributed to Israel.
Hamas, which is allied with Hezbollah, invaded southern Israel on October 7 last year, triggering the war in the Gaza Strip. According to Israeli sources, at least 1,205 people were killed in the unprecedented Hamas attack and 251 others were taken hostage to the Gaza Strip. According to Hamas figures, which cannot be independently verified, more than 41,300 people have been killed so far in the Israeli offensive in response to the attack.
Since October 8, Israel’s north has also been under constant attack from Hezbollah. Israel is responding to the attacks with counterattacks in Lebanon. Tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border have since become internally displaced.
