Hezbollah announced at dawn on Monday the expansion of the scope of its military operations on the northern front, where it carried out a series of simultaneous attacks targeting military sites and settlements inside Israel. This remarkable field escalation extended to areas near Haifa.
In successive statements, Hezbollah stated that at exactly 02:00 in the morning, it targeted a gathering of Israeli soldiers and vehicles east of the Khiam detention center with a barrage of concentrated rockets, simultaneously with the bombing of the “Al-Matula” and “Doviv” settlements with missile bursts, as part of a response to the Israeli attacks.
The party also added that at exactly 02:50 am, the “Ghajar” site was bombed with a barrage of missiles, followed at 03:50 am by an air attack carried out by a group of attack drones targeting the “Shomera” barracks, confirming that the targets were hit accurately.
In a notable development, the party announced that at 04:30 in the morning, the “Mishmar al-Carmel” missile defense site of the Israeli army, south of the city of Haifa, was targeted by a barrage of specific missiles, in a move that reflects the expansion of the targeting scope to a greater depth.
Hezbollah confirmed that these operations come “in defense of Lebanon and its people,” and in the context of imposing new field equations along the front, noting that it carried out about 70 military operations during the past 24 hours, targeting military sites and settlements in northern Israel.
He also explained that yesterday, Sunday, an Israeli warplane was confronted in the airspace of Nabatieh and forced to withdraw, in addition to a helicopter being targeted in the airspace of Naqoura with an air defense missile, forcing it to withdraw, in addition to an armed drone being shot down in the airspace of the town of Mansouri.
These strikes come in the context of an unprecedented escalation witnessed on the southern front since the beginning of March, as confrontations between Israel and Hezbollah increase, in parallel with the expansion of ground operations and air strikes inside Lebanese territory.
The past few days have witnessed a noticeable increase in the frequency of Israeli raids that targeted areas in the south, the Bekaa, and the southern suburbs of Beirut, which led to a widening of the scope of clashes and increased fears of the situation sliding toward a comprehensive confrontation.
On the other hand, Hezbollah’s expansion of its list of targets, especially targeting locations further deep inside Israel, reflects the transition of the confrontation to a more sensitive stage, amid increasing international warnings of the repercussions of continued escalation on the stability of the region.
