A Hezbollah member near a Fadi-6 missile launched against an Israeli base near Tel Aviv. (Credit: Screenshot of video circulated by the party's "War Media" Telegram channel)
On Tuesday, Hezbollah announced it had fired Fadi-6 rockets at Israel’s Tel Nof air base, located southeast of Tel Aviv. In a video published on Wednesday, Hezbollah identified this key base — one of the oldest in the Israeli air force — as being “southeast of the occupied city of Jaffa,” approximately 145 kilometers from the Lebanese border. The base houses F-15 aircraft, drones, and specialized electronic warfare units.
This marks Hezbollah’s first use of the sixth generation of Fadi rockets, indicating an escalation in its ongoing war with Israel. Hostilities between the two sides began on Oct. 8, 2023, the day after Hamas launched an attack on Israel, with Hezbollah subsequently announcing a “support front for Gaza.” The attrition conflict has since escalated further in a full-scale war, with Israel expanding strikes across Lebanon on Sept. 23 and launching a ground offensive on Sept. 30.
Tel Nof, also known as Air Force Base 8, is situated near Rehovot, roughly 24 kilometers south of Tel Aviv-Jaffa.
In the video, a blurred-faced Hezbollah fighter swears allegiance to the organization’s new secretary-general, Naim Qassem, standing beside Fadi-6 missiles and photos of Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s former leader, who was assassinated on Sept. 27 in an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs. The fighter vows that “the resistance’s capabilities from southern Lebanon will lead to victory.”
The video continues with footage of five missile launches, showing rockets crossing the skies over southern Lebanon. The video then cuts to what Hezbollah states is Israeli surveillance footage, showing people running along a shoreline while alarm sirens blare, reportedly at the targeted base.
Hezbollah previously used Fadi-1 and Fadi-2 rockets on Sept. 22. It had also fired three salvos of these rockets, two of which targeted Israel’s Ramat David airbase in Haifa, northern Israel, and a third aimed at the headquarters of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, in an industrial zone north of Haifa.
In a second video, Hezbollah published the technical map of the Fadi 6 missile, used on Nov. 11, 2024.
With a diameter of 302 mm, this tactical ground-to-ground missile has a range of 225 km. Its warhead weighs 140 kg and its total weight is 650 kg.
The Fadi-6 is used for area bombardment with a small margin of error, to extend the range of operations to deeper areas. It can be launched from fixed or mobile ramps and runs on solid fuel.