Hezbollah targets northern Israel in retaliation for death of commander Abu Taleb

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Hezbollah unleashed a multipronged attack on sites in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights on Thursday.

The Iran-backed group said it fired missiles at six Israeli military sites, including a barracks, in a co-ordinated attack the day after it launched a barrage of rockets from southern Lebanon.

Simultaneously, it also launched several squadrons of assault drones at positions in northern Israel, including the main intelligence base in northern Israel that Hezbollah said was responsible for the assassinations of its fighters.

The Israeli military said approximately 40 projectiles were launched towards the Galilee and Golan Heights area.

Two people were wounded by shrapnel, Israel's national ambulance service said, and a number of wildfires were set off by rockets that landed in open areas.

Hezbollah pledged to intensify its attacks on Israel after the assassination of a senior commander on Tuesday night.

The Lebanese armed group, which is also a political party, said its attacks came in response to the Israeli strike on the south Lebanese village of Jouaiya, about 15km from the Israeli border, that killed Taleb Sami Abdallah, also known as Abu Taleb, and three other members of Hezbollah.

“Our response after the martyrdom of Abu Taleb will be to intensify our operations in severity, strength, quantity and quality,” said senior Hezbollah official Hashem Saffieddine at the funeral of Mr Abdallah on Wednesday.

His remarks came after Hezbollah had already fired more than 200 rockets on northern Israel, its largest barrage yet since hostilities broke out along the Lebanese-Israeli border area on October 8.

“Let the enemy wait for us in the battlefield,” he added.

There were no immediate reports of casualties. Some projectiles were intercepted, while others ignited brush fires.

Fires have become common on both sides of the border as the dry summer heat has begun.

“It is natural that Abu Taleb was a permanent target,” Mr Saffieddine said of the commander, the most senior Hezbollah leader to be killed since October.

Mr Abdallah is among 300 Hezbollah fighters to have been killed since the conflict broke out, but one of only two who the group has formally referred to as a commander.

More information has since been released about Mr Abdallah, who was the commander of the Nasr Unit, which is responsible for part of the border area.

He was described by Mr Saffieddine as an important leader in the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war, the last time the two sides fought a full-on conflict.

Israel has upped military drills on the border, some of which involve brigades withdrawn from Gaza, the army announced on Thursday.

“In the last two weeks, a series of brigade exercises were carried out in which the troops were trained for different combat patterns in the northern arena,” it said in a statement, publishing images of soldiers training with weapons.

“The exercise simulated a combat scenario at varying ranges, while emphasising the capabilities of movement in a tangled terrain, progress along a mountainous route, the use of multi-scale fire and combat in different areas,” it added.

G7 'concerned'

The conflict on the Israel-Lebanon border was also the subject of discussions in Baghdad and Italy on Thursday.

Iraq and Iran's foreign ministers discussed the “dangerous signs” of Israel possibly attacking Lebanon, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said after meeting with visiting Iranian Acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani.

“If there is an attack on southern Lebanon, God forbid, it will affect the whole region,” Mr Hussein said during a press conference in Baghdad. He warned that “expanding the war is not only a danger to Lebanon but to the entire region”.

Mr Bagheri Kani said “the Zionists, due to their failure in Gaza, might make another mistake and expand their aggression”. Both countries called for an immediate ceasefire in the continuing war in Gaza. Iran is a key backer of Hezbollah.

Ahead of a G7 meeting in Puglia, where a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was top of the agenda, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the situation in Lebanon would also be discussed.

US President Joe Biden would discuss “the increasing intensity and scope of the strikes by Hezbollah deeper into Israel, and including into civilian areas”, Mr Sullivan said, adding that a ceasefire in Gaza would help bring calm to that region as well.

Hezbollah says it is carrying out the attacks in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has undertaken a brutal bombardment that has killed more than 37,100 people. Hezbollah says it will not end its attacks until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.