Hezbollah fires over 100 rockets at Israel

The attack is in retaliation for Israel’s airstrike near Baalbek that killed a Lebanese

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah said Tuesday it launched over 100 rockets at Israeli military positions in retaliation for a strike on the country’s east that killed one person the day before.

Hezbollah launched “more than a hundred katyusha rockets” Tuesday morning at two military bases, the group said in a statement.

This was “in response to the Israeli attacks on our people, villages and cities, most recently near the city of Baalbek and the killing of a citizen,” it added.

On Monday, Israeli air strikes near Lebanon’s eastern city of Baalbek killed one person, in the second raid on the Hezbollah stronghold since cross-border hostilities began.

“Israeli aircraft targeted a former Hezbollah building near Dar Al Amal Hospital,” a security source told Agence France-Presse, adding that Israel “conducted another raid on a warehouse west of Baalbek.” The strikes killed one person and injured six others, he added. The governor of the Baalbek-Hermel region, Bachir Khodr, also said a man had been killed in the strikes near Baalbek in a post on social media platform X.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported Israeli air strikes on two locations, including the strike on the warehouse.

The NNA also reported Israeli raids “targeting a residential building in the town of Ansar... south of Baalbek.”

“Fire and plumes of smoke could be seen rising from the targeted location,” the NNA added.

The Israeli military later confirmed its jets had hit two sites belonging to “Hezbollah’s aerial forces.”

“The strikes were in retaliation to Hezbollah aircraft attacks launched towards the Golan Heights over recent days,” it added.

The city of Baalbek in the Bekaa valley is a Hezbollah bastion, bordering Syria.

On 26 February, Israeli strikes targeted Baalbek, some 100 kilometers from the border, killing two Hezbollah members.

Hezbollah has repeatedly said it will only stop its attacks on Israel with a ceasefire in Gaza.

But Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant recently said any truce in Gaza would not change Israel’s goal of pushing Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon, by force or diplomacy.

Hamas ally Hezbollah and its arch-foe Israel have exchanged neardaily fire since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in Gaza in October, killing at least 317 people, mainly Hezbollah fighters but also 54 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Strikes have largely been confined to border regions, but several Israeli strikes have hit Hezbollah positions further north in recent weeks, raising fears of a full-blown conflict.

In Israel, at least 10 soldiers and seven civilians have been killed in the cross-border hostilities.