Israel: 100 Hezbollah rocket launchers hit Lebanon

Israel has carried out extensive air strikes on southern Lebanon, saying its warplanes had hit more than 100 Hezbollah rocket launch sites and other “terrorist sites,” including an arms depot.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the rocket launchers were ready to be fired at Israel. It was initially unclear whether there were any casualties.

The Lebanese state news agency reported that Israel carried out at least 52 attacks in the south of the country on Thursday evening. Hezbollah, meanwhile, said it also carried out attacks on military bases in northern Israel.

The Israeli air strikes, which lasted more than two hours, were among the heaviest of the recent conflict.

On Friday morning, Israel lifted the movement restrictions imposed on Thursday for communities in the Golan Heights and parts of northern Israel, the Israeli military confirmed.

The Israeli military added that it would be conducting “activities in the training areas” in northern Israel over the weekend and that “gunfire and explosions” could be heard in surrounding settlements.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had previously said the deadly explosions earlier this week had “crossed all red lines” and accused Israel of declaring war.

Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday, in which pagers and walkie-talkies exploded simultaneously across the country and which, according to Lebanese authorities, killed 37 people and injured 3,000.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel was in a “new phase of the war” and would increasingly focus its efforts on the north.

The previously sporadic cross-border fighting escalated on October 8, 2023 – a day after the unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas gunmen from Gaza – when Hezbollah fired on Israeli positions in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Since then, hundreds of people, most of them Hezbollah fighters, have been killed in cross-border fighting and tens of thousands have been displaced on both sides of the border.

Senior nurse Hisham Bawadi told the BBC that the Beirut medical centre where he works was hit by a “tsunami of patients” following the explosions.

“Most of the injuries were to the face, especially the eyes, face and upper extremities, and there were also some injuries to the abdomen,” he said.

A series of planned operations would take place over the weekend to “care for the high number of victims” caused by the exploding pagers, he added.

Two companies based in Taiwan and Hungary that have been accused in media reports of making the pagers have both denied responsibility. The Taiwanese government has said the various parts of the pagers did not come from Taiwan.

“The components are low-end ICs (integrated circuits) and batteries. I can say with certainty that they were not made in Taiwan,” said Economics Minister Kuo Jyh-huei.

The Bulgarian State Security Service (DANS) also said that none of the pagers that exploded in Tuesday's bombings in Lebanon were imported into, exported from or manufactured in Bulgaria. According to local media reports, a Bulgarian company brokered the sale of the pagers to Hezbollah.

Hezbollah said it supported the Palestinian armed group Hamas. Both are backed by Iran and are proscribed as terrorist organizations by Israel, Britain and other countries.

In a statement late Thursday, Israeli forces said they had hit “about 100 launch pads and other terrorist infrastructure facilities, consisting of about 1,000 missiles ready for firing at Israeli territory in the near future.”

“The Israeli Defense Forces will continue to work to weaken the infrastructure and capabilities of the terrorist organization Hezbollah in order to defend the State of Israel.”

Citing Reuters news agency and the New York Times, Lebanese security sources said the Israeli attacks were the heaviest since the Gaza war began in October last year.

The Israeli military also called on residents in northern Israel near the Lebanese border to avoid large gatherings, protect their neighborhoods and stay close to bomb shelters.

On Thursday morning, Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon fired two anti-tank missiles across the border, followed by drones.

According to the Israeli military, two Israeli soldiers were killed and a third was seriously injured.

In his televised address on Thursday, Hassan Nasrallah said of the attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday: “The enemy has crossed all rules, laws and red lines. He did not care about anything, neither morally, nor humanly, nor legally.”

He added: “This is a massacre, a serious aggression against Lebanon, its people, its resistance, its sovereignty and its security. You can call it a war crime or a declaration of war – whatever you call it, it is deserved and fits the description. That was the enemy's intention.”

As Nasrallah spoke, Israeli warplanes created sonic booms over Beirut, terrifying the already exhausted population, while other planes attacked targets in southern Lebanon.

While acknowledging that this was a massive and unprecedented blow to his group, the Hezbollah leader stressed that its command and communication capabilities remained intact.

Nasrallah's tone was defiant and he threatened harsh punishment. But he made it clear again that Hezbollah is not interested in an escalation of the current conflict with Israel.

He said the group's cross-border attacks would continue unless there was a ceasefire in Gaza and that no killings or attacks would force residents to return to northern Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces said on Thursday that its Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, had “recently completed the approval of plans for the northern arena.”

Gallant later said that “the new phase of the war presents great opportunities but also great risks.”

“Hezbollah feels persecuted and the series of military actions will continue,” he added.

“Our goal is to ensure the safe return of Israel's northern communities to their homes. Over time, Hezbollah will pay an ever-increasing price for this.”

It is unclear how Israel plans to achieve this goal, but reports earlier this week suggested that the general of the Israel Defense Forces' Northern Command supported the creation of an Israeli-controlled buffer zone in southern Lebanon.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on all sides to exercise restraint.

“We do not want to see any escalating action by any side” that would complicate the goal of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, he said at a meeting with European foreign ministers in Paris to discuss the deepening crisis.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who also attended the talks in Paris, called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

“It is very clear to all of us that we want a negotiated political solution so that the Israelis can return to their homes in northern Israel and the Lebanese can also return to their homes,” he said.