The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has told residents of northern Israel and the Golan Heights to remain near bomb shelters as Israel intensified its airstrikes against Hezbollah and the terror group fired hundreds of rockets Friday.
The escalation occurred as Hezbollah reeled from attacks on its officials and operatives through pagers and walkie-talkie devices, and as the Iranian-backed terror group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, gave a speech vowing revenge.
Even as he did so, Israeli warplanes buzzed Beirut and carried out airstrikes against Hezbollah positions.
On Thursday, Israel targeted hundreds of Hezbollah rocket launchers in southern Lebanon. The IDF said in a statement:
Over the last two hours, directed by IDF intelligence, the IAF struck hundreds of rocket launcher barrels that were ready to be used immediately to fire toward Israeli territory.
Since this afternoon, the IAF has struck approximately 100 launchers and additional terrorist infrastructure sites, consisting of approximately 1000 barrels that were ready to be used in the immediate future to fire toward Israeli territory.
The IDF will continue to operate to degrade the Hezbollah terrorist organization’s infrastructure and capabilities in order to defend the State of Israel.
The IDF instructed residents of northern Israel to stay near shelters, anticipating retaliation by Hezbollah. It removed that warning, then reinstated it Friday, as Hezbollah fired 150 rockets at northern Israel.
The Times of Israel noted that the rockets were fired in waves, and that no injuries had yet been reported.
The conflict on Israel’s northern border began in October with unprovoked rocket, missile, and drone attacks by Hezbollah. Israel evacuated over 60,000 civilians from the area, whom it has vowed will return home safely.
The U.S. insists that there be no escalation, and President Joe Biden warned Hezbollah and its Iranian patron, “Don’t.” However, the Biden administration’s efforts to forge a diplomatic solution appear to have failed.
Israel now faces a major war on a second front — with the advantage, however, of having nearly completed the war against Hamas in Gaza, though it has yet to rescue the 101 Israeli hostages who still remain in Hamas captivity.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
