Lebanon‘s armed group Hezbollah launched drone and rocket attacks into northern Israel on Tuesday, warning that its retaliation over Israel’s killing of a top commander last week is yet to come.
The attacks targeted two military sites near Acre and an Israeli military vehicle.
Hezbollah said it deployed a swarm of attack drones at two military sites near Acre and also attacked an Israeli military vehicle in a different location.The Israeli military confirmed identifying several hostile drones crossing from Lebanon, successfully intercepting one.
Several civilians were injured near the coastal city of Nahariya, and Reuters reported that the impact site was near a bus stop on a main road outside the city.
Israeli military sirens sounded around Acre, which later turned out to be a false alarm, according to a statement by Israeli military. In response, Israel’s air force struck two Hezbollah facilities in southern Lebanon. The strike reportedly led to death of five Hezbollah members, according to Lebanese security officials quoted by AFP sources.
Rising tensions have increased fears that the Middle East could be tipped into full-blown war following promises by Hezbollah and Iran to avenge recent killings of commanders.
A Hezbollah source informed Reuters, “the response to the assassination of commander Fuad Shukr has not yet come.”
On Tuesday, a strike killed four people in the Lebanese town of Mayfadoun, 30 km (19 miles) north of the border, according to medics and a security source. Two additional security sources reported that the deceased were Hezbollah fighters, but the group has not yet confirmed this.
For the past 10 months, Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been engaging in tit-for-tat strikes around the border area, coinciding with the Gaza conflict. Last week, Israel killed Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s senior-most military commander, in a strike on the group’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut.
Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, vowed to take revenge for the killing but mentioned that the response would be “studied.”