Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group occupying southern Lebanon, fired hundreds of rockets at Israel overnight into Wednesday morning following an IDF strike on a senior Hezbollah commander.
The attacks coincided with the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which celebrates the giving of the Ten Commandments and the Torah on Mount Sinai. Many Israelis in northern Israel were forced to take shelter. In one video, families are seen running to bomb shelters from a picnic as a father, who is filming, calms his children.
The IDF said in a statement:
LAST NIGHT (TUESDAY), A HEZBOLLAH COMMAND AND CONTROL CENTER IN THE AREA OF JOUAIYYA IN SOUTHERN LEBANON, WHICH WAS USED TO DIRECT TERROR ATTACKS AGAINST ISRAELI TERRITORY FROM SOUTHEASTERN LEBANON IN RECENT MONTHS, WAS STRUCK BY THE IAF. AS PART OF THE STRIKE, SAMI TALEB ABDULLAH, THE COMMANDER OF THE NASR UNIT IN THE HEZBOLLAH TERRORIST ORGANIZATION, WAS ELIMINATED. SAMI TALEB ABDULLAH WAS ONE OF HEZBOLLAH’S MOST SENIOR COMMANDERS IN SOUTHERN LEBANON. FOR MANY YEARS, THE TERRORIST PLANNED, ADVANCED, AND CARRIED OUT A LARGE NUMBER OF TERROR ATTACKS AGAINST ISRAELI CIVILIANS. THREE ADDITIONAL HEZBOLLAH TERRORIST OPERATIVES WERE ALSO ELIMINATED IN THE STRIKE.
Hezbollah fired over 200 rockets at northern Israel, including near the holy city of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, according to the Times of Israel. There were no casualties, but several brush fires, which firefighters extinguished.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking from Doha, Qatar, said that a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza would help calm tensions between Israel and Hezbollah because it would remove Hezbollah’s reasons for war.
Hezbollah is committed to the destruction of Israel and moved years ago into the border region of southern Lebanon in defiance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1707 (2006) to advance its goal, regardless of the Gaza war.
It began firing sporadically on Israel after the Hamas terror attack of October 7. It paused during a truce in November when Hamas released Israeli hostages and Israel released Palestinian terrorists, but has accelerated its attacks since.
