A beach in Tel Aviv, August 2024. (Credit: AFP)
Hezbollah announced on Sunday that it had struck Israeli military infrastructure in Ashdod, about 150 kilometers from the Lebanese-Israeli border, and in Tel Aviv.
In an initial statement, the party claimed to have targeted, for the second time this week, the Ashdod naval base. This city on the southern Israeli coast is located about thirty kilometers north of the Gaza Strip. The attack was carried out with "booby-trapped drones" as part of Hezbollah's ‘Khaybar’ operation series, launched shortly after the death of its former leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in massive Israeli airstrikes on southern Beirut's suburbs on Sept. 27.
Response to the Basta strike
The party also announced, as part of the same series of attacks and "in response to the strike on Beirut and the massacres committed against civilians," a missile and drone strike against "a military target in Tel Aviv," which it did not specify. The Israeli air force had targeted central Beirut four times during the past week. The latest bombing, on the night of Friday to Saturday, hit a building in Basta, causing numerous civilian casualties.
Last Wednesday, Hezbollah's leader, Naim Qassem, had stated that his party would target the "center of Tel Aviv" in retaliation for Israeli strikes on Beirut. "Israel attacked the heart of Beirut, so it must expect the response to take place in the center of Tel Aviv. It must pay the price," he had declared in a speech.
In the early afternoon, the party further stated that it had targeted the Glilot base, home to the Israeli military's Unit 8200 intelligence services in the Tel Aviv suburbs, 110 kilometers from the Blue Line. Hezbollah said it had used "advanced missiles," the name given to its precision-guided missiles.
Neither the Israeli military, which reported dozens of rockets fired from Lebanon on Sunday morning, nor Israeli media, mentioned any damage in Tel Aviv or Ashdod, while sirens sounded in these areas.
Drones, helicopters, and the ‘Arrow’ system
Furthermore, Hezbollah commented on a strike carried out Friday against the Palmachim base on the Israeli coastline south of Tel Aviv, about 140 kilometers from the border. This strike was carried out with "a salvo of precision-guided missiles." According to the party, this military base is "an essential infrastructure for the Israeli Air Force, housing drone squadrons, military helicopters, a research center, and the Hetz air defense and anti-missile system," the Hebrew name for the ‘Arrow’ system.
Earlier in the day, Hezbollah had announced firing on several locations in northern Israel, including one on Maalot Tarshiha, about ten kilometers from the Blue Line, which, according to Israeli media, caused damage and a fire in a local factory.
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