The day after the leader of the Shiite group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, spoke about his increasingly active role in the “support front” for Hamas, missiles and projectiles fired from southern Lebanon injured 20 civilians and soldiers in the north. From Israel. The Israeli Air Force responded by attacking pro-Iranian militia targets in the most tense day on this border since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the anti-tank missile fire that seriously injured six citizens in the Upper Galilee and clarified that the target was a vehicle of a logistics force of the Israeli Army that was going to install a surveillance device near the border. They were, however, employees of the national electricity company who went to the community of Dovev to repair destroyed power lines for previous attacks from neighboring Lebanon.
The automatic Israeli reaction consisted of artillery against the origin of the launch in the Lebanese area and the neutralization of several commandos. In the afternoon, sirens north of the Haifa city perimeter sounded for the first time in the crisis. The Iron Dome intercepted several projectiles claimed by Hamas cells in southern Lebanon. At the same time, seven soldiers and several civilians were wounded in other areas in Israel.
Since the jihadist attack on October 7 and the subsequent Israeli military offensive, Nasrallah has shown with words, drones and missiles his solidarity with his Sunni Palestinian brother in the Shiite family led by Iran. But if the rhetorical support is total, praising the terrorist infiltration in the south of Israel, at the armed level it is a matter of gradual assistance to force the enemy to send soldiers to the northern border – and not concentrate only on Gaza – and to evacuate citizens. Despite pressure from Hamas and Islamic Jihad who expected more, Hezbollah has not yet crossed the line that could lead Israel to expand its retaliation in such a way that the two sides repeat the 2006 war that lasted 34 days.
The Israeli Army has taken advantage of Hezbollah’s attacks to neutralize not only projectile and sniper commands (killing 73 combatants according to this group compared to six soldiers) but dozens of positions deployed on the border. In Israel, there are more and more voices demanding not to waste the situation to massively hit the Nasrallah group.