Sept. 20 (UPI) — Amid fears of an expanding war in the Middle East following mass detentions of bombs surreptitiously planted in Hezbollah communication devices, Israel continued its assault on the Iran-backed militia overnight.
Israeli warplanes, under the direction of Israel Defense Force intelligence and Northern Command, struck around 100 rocket launchers and other Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon, the Israeli Air Force and IDF said Friday.
The IDF described the attack as intent on degrading Hezbollah’s capabilities and infrastructure.
“For decades, Hezbollah has weaponized civilian homes, dug tunnels beneath them and used civilians as human shields — having turned southern Lebanon into a war zone,” it said on social media.
מטוסי קרב של חיל-האוויר תקפו בשעתיים האחרונות בהכוונת אמ”ן ופיקוד הצפון, מאות קני שיגור שהיו מוכנים לשיגור מיידי לשטח מדינת ישראל.
החל משעות אחר הצהריים הותקפו סך הכל כ-100 משגרים ותשתיות צבאיות נוספות, בהם כ-1,000 קני שיגור שהיו מוכנים לשיגור מיידי.
צה”ל ממשיך לפגוע ולגרוע… pic.twitter.com/60LlPMAk0M— Israeli Air Force (@IAFsite) September 19, 2024
The airstrikes comes after nearly 50 people were killed and more than 5,000 injured in a sophisticated, coordinated attack that saw pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah militants detonate simultaneously. The pagers exploded Tuesday, with the walkie-talkies detonating the next day.
Hezbollah has blamed Israel for the recent attacks involving communications devices, and its secretary-general, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, warned in a televised address on Thursday that Israel had crossed “all the red lines.”
Meanwhile, international organizations, such as the United Nations, have called for call and for both sides to exercise maximum restraint to prevent the war from exploding throughout the Middle East.
Though Israel has yet to comment directly, Israeli officials declared this week a new objective of the war: the return of tens of thousands of Israelis to their Northern Israel homes near the Lebanese border.
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging attacks across the southern Lebanese border since Israel’s war with Hamas, another Iran-backed group, started nearly a year ago.
About 60,000 Israelis have been evacuated from northern Israeli cities close to the Lebanese border because of the constant military strikes, and on Tuesday, the day of the pager attack, Netanyahu’s offices said in a statement that his Security Cabinet updated its objectives of the war to include returning the evacuated to their homes.
“We are at the start of a new phase in the war,” Yoav Gallant, Israel’s minister of defense, said Wednesday.
“We are allocating resources and forces to the northern arena and our mission is clear: ensuring the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes. To do so, the security situation must be changed.”