BEIRUT (AP) — The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah struck a military post in northern Israel this week using a drone that fired two missiles. The attack injured three soldiers, one seriously, according to the Israeli army.
Hezbollah has regularly fired missiles across the border with Israel over the past seven months, but Thursday’s appears to have been the first successful missile airstrike it has launched from Israeli airspace.
The group has intensified its attacks against Israel in recent weeks, particularly since the Israeli incursion into the southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip. It struck deeper into Israel and introduced new and more advanced weapons.
“It is a method of sending messages on the ground to the Israeli enemy, which means it is part of what we have and if necessary we can strike more,” said Lebanese political analyst Faisal Abdul-Sater, who closely follows Hezbollah.
While cross-border firefights have continued since the beginning of October, Hezbollah’s “complex attacks” began a few days later. The unprecedented Iranian drone and missile barrage attack on Israel in mid-April.
Over the past two weeks, Hezbollah has intensified its efforts in response to the Israeli incursion into the country. the southern town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, said a Lebanese official familiar with the group’s operations. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to detail military information to the media.
Thursday afternoon’s attack by a missile-carrying drone came just days after Hezbollah launched three anti-tank guided missiles at an Israeli military post that controlled a surveillance balloon flying over the border. They then released camera footage to show they had achieved their goal. Hours later, the Israeli military confirmed that the spy balloon had been shot down over Lebanon.
The previous night, Hezbollah carried out its largest attack in Israel to date, using explosive drones to strike a base in Ilaniya, near the town of Tiberias, about 35 kilometers from the Lebanese border. The Israeli military said no one was injured in the attack.
Abdul-Sater, the analyst, said the Iranian-led coalition, known as the Axis of Resistance, which includes the Palestinian militant group Hamas, has warned that if Israeli troops launch a full-scale invasion scale of Rafah to try to attack Hamas, other fronts will also intensify.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said Wednesday that they attacked an American destroyer while Iran-backed militants in Iraq said they had fired a series of drones toward Israel in recent weeks after remaining relatively silent since February.
Hezbollah’s use of more advanced weapons, including drones capable of firing missiles, explosive drones, and the small type of guided missile known as the Almas, or Diamond, which was used to attack the base controlling the ball raised alarms within the Israeli army.
“Hezbollah has worsened the situation in the north,” said military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani. “They shoot more and more.”
By adapting its attacks, Hezbollah also managed to reduce the number of fighters lost compared to the first weeks of the conflict.
The group has lost more than 250 fighters so far, compared to 15 Israeli soldiers since fighting began along the Lebanese-Israeli border a day after the war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7.
According to an Associated Press tally, Hezbollah lost 47 fighters in October and 35 in November, compared with 20 in April and 12 so far this month.
The official close to the group’s operations said Hezbollah had reduced the number of fighters along the border areas to reduce casualties. As Hezbollah continues to fire Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles from areas near the border, it has also begun firing drones and other types of rockets with heavy warheads – including Almas rockets as well as Falaq rockets and Burkan – from several areas. kilometers (miles) from the border.
Over the weekend, Hezbollah announced it had launched a new heavy-warhead rocket named Jihad Mughniyeh, in tribute to an official killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Syria in 2015.
Eva J. Koulouriotis, a political analyst specializing in the Middle East and jihadist groups, wrote on the social media platform on a border agreement, as well as increasing military pressure on the Israeli army in light of preparations for the Battle of Rafah.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promised in a speech last week that “we will stand, we will achieve our goals, we will strike Hamas, we will destroy Hezbollah and we will provide security.”
On Monday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah reiterated in a speech that there will be no end to the fighting along the Lebanese-Israeli border until Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip end. .
“The main objective of the Lebanese front is to help put pressure on the enemy to end the war against Gaza,” Nasrallah said.
His comments come as a blow to attempts by foreign dignitaries, including U.S. and French officials, who have visited Beirut to o tries to put an end to it to the violence that has displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border.
A day after Nasrallah’s speech, Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly visited Beirut and told private Lebanese television channel LBC that she was pushing for a ceasefire.
“We need the people of southern Lebanon to be able to return home,” she said. “We must ensure that Israelis living in northern Israel can also return home. »
Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Kassim warned Israel in a speech over the weekend against initiating all-out war.
“You tried in the past and you were defeated and if you try again you will be defeated,” Kassim said, referring to the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 that ended in a draw.
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Associated Press writer Sam Mednick contributed to this report from Jerusalem.
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See more AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
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