Israel records 160 launches fom Lebanon as Hizbollah targets Tel Aviv, south

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel’s army said Hizbollah fired around 160 projectiles into its territory from Lebanon on Sunday, with group saying its attacks had targeted the Tel Aviv area and Israel’s south.

The Iran-backed group said in a statement that it had “launched, for the first time, an aerial attack using a swarm of attack drones on the Ashdod naval base” in southern Israel.

Later, it said it fired “a barrage of advanced missiles and a swarm of attack drones” at a “military target” in Tel Aviv, and had also launched a volley of missiles at the Glilot army intelligence base in the city’s suburbs.

The Israeli military did not comment on the specific attack claims when contacted by AFP.

But it said earlier that air raid sirens had sounded in several locations in central and northern Israel, including in the greater Tel Aviv suburbs.

It later reported that “approximately 160 projectiles that were fired by the Hizbollah terrorist organisation have crossed from Lebanon into Israel”.

Some of the projectiles were shot down.

Medical agencies reported that at least 11 people were wounded, including a man in a “moderate to serious” condition. 

AFP images from Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv, showed several damaged and burned-out cars, and a house pockmarked by shrapnel.

The wave of projectiles follows at least four deadly Israeli strikes in central Beirut in the past week, including one that killed Hizbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif.

In a speech on Wednesday, Hizbollah chief Naim Qassem had said the response to the recent strikes on the capital “must be expected on central Tel Aviv”.

The Lebanese army, meanwhile, said that a soldier was killed on Sunday and 18 others injured, “including some with severe wounds, as a result of an Israeli attack targeting a Lebanese army centre in Amriyeh”.

Though the Lebanese army is not a party to the war between Israel and Hizbollah, Israeli strikes have killed 19 Lebanese soldiers in the last two months, authorities have said.

Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign, later sending in ground troops after nearly a year of limited exchanges of fire initiated by Hizbollah in support of its ally Hamas after the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack, which sparked the Gaza war.

Lebanon’s health ministry says at least 3,670 people have been killed in the country since October 2023, most of them since September this year.