Drone hits Nahariya, IDF warns Lebanese to flee Baalbek as US mediators head to region

A drone fired from Lebanon hit an aviation plant in northern Israel, and Israel warned residents of a Hezbollah stronghold deep inside Lebanon to flee ahead of airstrikes, as Israel and the terror group continued to trade blows ahead of the arrival of senior US officials hoping to halt the deadly fighting.

The Israel Defense Forces said late Wednesday morning that residents in the northeastern Lebanese city of Baalbek should evacuate immediately, with warplanes set to target sites connected to the Iran-backed terror group in the area.

“The IDF will act forcefully against Hezbollah assets inside your city and villages, and does not intend to harm you,” Col. Avichay Adraee said on X, attaching a map showing a large part of Baalbek and surrounding towns in the Beqaa Valley.

Residents of Baalbek rushed out of their homes in response to the order, and an AFP correspondent reported that the main roads out of the city were jammed with vehicles as civilians fled in panic.

Civil defense vehicles drove around the city urging everyone to leave immediately over loudspeaker. “The city is almost empty,” the correspondent said about an hour after the evacuation warning.

The area, a UNESCO World Heritage site home to 3,000-year-old Roman ruins, is seen as a Hezbollah power base, and has come under repeated Israeli attack since fighting against the terror group ramped up last month. On Tuesday, the Beqaa Valley’s district governor said some 60 people had been killed in strikes the night before.

The warning was issued hours after a drone impacted in the northern coastal city of Nahariya and a ballistic missile fired from Lebanon triggered warning sirens in dozens of cities and towns north of Tel Aviv. In the northern border town of Metula, a rocket attack injured two farmhands, one seriously.

The IDF said the UAV that struck in Nahariya was only picked up by military radar just before it struck, the latest incident in which a drone appeared to evade Israel’s air defenses and early warning system. An investigation was opened, the army said.

According to reports in Hebrew-language media, the drone hit an aviation plant in Nahariya, causing slight damage. A picture distributed online showed broken windows and a small hole in a corrugated steel roof of what appeared to be an industrial building.

עיריית נהריה: נזק קל נגרם לגג של מבנה תעשייתי בצפון העיר. ייתכן שמדובר בפגיעת סוג של כלי טיס, ללא התרעה. הנושא בבדיקה@CBeyar pic.twitter.com/MHfu4eJ19m

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) October 30, 2024

The attack appeared to be the only successful one of at least six drones fired at northern Israel overnight, with most of them setting off alarms in the Western Galilee. The army said it downed two drones within half an hour of each other after 5 a.m. and another three within minutes of each other after 8 a.m.

In central Israel, rocket sirens sounded in Netanya, Hadera and nearly 50 other towns and communities in the heavily populated coastal Sharon region just after 6:15 a.m. Wednesday. The IDF said the alarms were triggered by the launch of a surface-to-surface missile from Lebanon, which subsequently broke up in mid-air.

Later Wednesday morning, two people were wounded by shrapnel from rocket fire while working in a field near the town of Metula on the border with Lebanon. Rambam Hospital in Haifa said one of the men, in his 40s, was seriously wounded, while the other, in his 30s, was in light-to-moderate condition.

There were no other reports of casualties or major damage in the attacks. The day before, Hezbollah fired at least 75 rockets at northern Israel, killing one person.

There was also no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks from the Iran-backed terror group, which has pounded Israel with hundreds of rockets and attack drones daily since fighting intensified in mid-September.

In a series of statements, the group claimed to have repeatedly shelled Israeli forces on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese town of Khiam. Lebanese state media reported Tuesday night that Israeli tanks had rolled into Khiam’s environs, marking the IDF’s deepest incursion yet into southern Lebanon since the start of the ground operation against Hezbollah last month.

Israel stepped up its military campaign against Hezbollah in September, beginning a limited ground invasion, as it seeks to dismantle the terror group’s infrastructure near the Israeli-Lebanese frontier to end over a year of rocket fire that has forced tens of thousands of residents of northern Israel to flee their homes.

Lebanon said late Tuesday that 77 people had been killed in Israeli strikes over the previous 24 hours, bringing the toll since the start of the stepped-up offensive to 2,787, without noting how many of them were combatants.

Israel says it has killed thousands of Hezbollah operatives over the past year, while blaming the group’s presence among civilians for the deaths of noncombatants.

Khiam, a large town some six kilometers (four miles) from the border with Israel, housed a notorious prison run by the South Lebanon Army during Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000.

The IDF did not comment on the report of armor pushing north, but said Wednesday morning it had struck over 100 terror targets in Lebanon from the air over the previous day, killing dozens of Hezbollah operatives.

Among the targets was a launcher used in a rocket barrage that hit and killed a man in the Israeli town of Ma’alot-Tarshiha Tuesday, the military said.

It added that ground forces had attacked Hezbollah buildings and other assets, including an anti-tank missile launching post, and had blown up underground shafts.

Troops found rocket launchers pointing toward northern Israeli towns that were placed “in the heart of civilian population,” the IDF said in a statement, adding that soldiers had also located anti-aircraft missiles and maps containing plans for attacks on Israel.

The army also said that it had killed the deputy commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force in a recent airstrike on the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh.

Mustafa Ahmad Shahadi had “advanced numerous terror attacks” against Israel, the IDF said.

Americans set to push ceasefire

Two of US President Joe Biden’s top aides on the Middle East conflict were due in Israel this week for discussions aimed at ending the fighting, an Israeli official confirmed to The Times of Israel.

Special envoys Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein were expected to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials to discuss a potential ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the official said on condition of anonymity.

A US official confirmed that the two would be in Israel on Thursday to discuss Israel’s conflicts with Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran. The official added that CENTCOM Commander Gen. Erik Kurilla would also visit Israel to engage with counterparts and US personnel on defense matters.

The Israeli official confirmed a report by the Walla news site saying that McGurk and Hochstein would present an official ceasefire proposal during meetings in an attempt to close a deal that Israeli and American officials say can be finalized within weeks.

According to Walla, the decision to fly to Israel for talks was made after Netanyahu held a high-level security consultation Tuesday night on possibly pursuing a ceasefire.

According to Channel 12 news, the discussion centered around whether Israel should push its ceasefire demands or instead expand the ongoing ground operation in southern Lebanon.

The report said that a team headed by Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer had drawn up proposed terms under which to end the conflict, and was recommending that Israel should try to do so, capitalizing on its military achievements against Hezbollah in recent weeks.

Earlier on Tuesday, senior Israel officials told the Ynet news outlet that there had been progress on an agreement to end the fighting in Lebanon. A potential deal, under discussion with international mediators, would see a 60-day “adaptation period” during which the sides would cease fire and work toward implementing UN Resolution 1701, which called for Hezbollah to leave the area near hte border with Israel, the news site said.

Reports in recent days have suggested that Israel is nearing the objectives of its ground incursion. On Tuesday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal had been reduced to a fifth of its former size.

“I estimate the remaining capacity of the missiles and rockets to be in the order of 20%, and also it is not organized in the way that it used to be organized, in a way that [Hezbollah] could fire [large] volleys,” he said.

Some 60,000 Israelis were evacuated from northern towns on the Lebanon border shortly after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, amid fears Hezbollah would carry out a similar attack, and increasing rocket fire by the terror group.

The attacks on northern Israel since October 2023 have resulted in the deaths of 32 civilians. In addition, 61 IDF soldiers and reservists have died in cross-border skirmishes and in the ensuing ground operation launched in southern Lebanon in late September.

Two soldiers have been killed in a drone attack from Iraq, and there have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.

The IDF estimates that more than 2,000 Hezbollah operatives have been killed in the conflict. Around 100 members of other terror groups, along with hundreds of civilians, have also been reported killed in Lebanon.

Hezbollah has named 516 members who have been killed by Israel amid the fighting, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. These numbers have not been consistently updated since Israel began a new offensive against Hezbollah in September.

Reuters and AFP contributed to this report.