Screenshot of the video released by Hezbollah on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024.
Hezbollah released a new one-minute video Saturday night listing a series of 24 Israeli towns, including some previously targeted by the party in its clashes with Israel. The video ends with a message in Hebrew and adopts a tone mimicking the warnings issued by the Israeli army's Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, before some Israeli bombings on populated civilian areas in Lebanon.
An Arabic text accompanying the video calls on residents to evacuate these towns: "To all residents of the settlements mentioned in this statement. You are requested to evacuate the places immediately. Your settlements have become a place of deployment and maintenance of the enemy military forces that attack Lebanon. As such, they have become legitimate military targets for the air forces and missiles of the Islamic Resistance."
The video scrolls through maps with areas marked in red in the towns whose names appear: Ayelet-Hashahar, Hatzor-Haglilit, Abirim, Beit HaEmek, Birya, Kfar Vradim, Kidmat Tsvi, Harashim, Bar Yohai, Dalton, Kiryat Shmona, Carmiel, Ma'alot-Tarshiha, Ivim, Menahemia, Nahariya, Shamir, Sha'al, Meron, Kabri, Neve Ziv, Katzrin, Kfar Hananya, Manot, Yesud Hameala. Some of these towns are located in military zones closed off by Israel since late September when it launched its ground offensive in Lebanon.
The video comes hours after Adraee announced on the X network that "paratroopers" attached to the Israeli army's 98th Division and the "Yahalom engineering unit" had used 400 tons of explosives to detonate a "strategic underground military facility that Hezbollah had built over the past 15 years," without specifying its location. It also follows Israel's response to Iran, which Hezbollah condemned as a "dangerous regional escalation."
