IDF strikes Hezbollah deep in Lebanon after missile fire on base, border community
Heavy damage caused to winery in Avivim; IDF says ‘no harm to capabilities’ in strike on Mount Meron air traffic control base; Israeli response marks northernmost strike amid war
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent

The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday said it carried out airstrikes on Hezbollah sites deep in Lebanon, after the terror group targeted a sensitive air traffic control base in northern Israel and a winery in a border community, causing damage in the latter attack.
The Israeli airstrike, near the northeastern town of Zboud, which is more than 110 kilometers from Israel’s border, marked the deepest strike in Lebanon amid the Israel-Hamas war.
The IDF said the strike, in response to the Hezbollah attack on the Mount Meron air traffic control base earlier in the day, targeted “a military compound used by Hezbollah’s aerial unit” near Zboud in the Baalbek District.
The compound included several buildings and a landing pad for drones, the IDF said.
The IDF also said it struck a building and other infrastructure used by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon’s Ayta ash-Shab and Kafr Kila, and an observation post in Maroun al-Ras.
According to the IDF, several projectiles, apparently anti-tank missiles, were fired from Lebanon at the Meron base earlier Tuesday. The strike caused no injuries and “no harm to the unit’s capabilities,” the IDF said.
Hezbollah has attacked Mount Meron, which is located some eight kilometers (5 miles) from the Lebanon border, several times amid the ongoing war, launching large barrages of rockets at the mountain, as well as missiles at the military base that sits atop it.
Hezbollah also fired three anti-tank missiles from at the northern community of Avivim, hitting a structure at a vineyard and causing a fire, according to the IDF and fire services.
The terror group claimed to have targeted buildings used by Israeli forces.
There were no reports of injuries in the attack, but heavy damage was caused to the winery, local authorities said and footage showed. Sirens did not sound in the largely evacuated community.
The owner of the winery told the Ynet news site that it was the fourth time his business had been hit by projectiles fired from Lebanon.
The IDF said it shelled the launch sites used in the two attacks with artillery.
After the IDF’s strikes in Baalbek, Hezbollah fired a barrage of around 50 rockets at northern Israel, claiming to target an army base in the Golan Heights.
The IDF said the Iron Dome air defense system intercepted some of the rockets with the remaining striking open areas. There were no reports of injuries.
In response to the barrage, the IDF said it carried out another strike against Hezbollah in northeastern Lebanon’s Baalbek.
The Israeli fighter jets targeted another “military compound used by Hezbollah’s aerial unit,” which included a launchpad for drones and several buildings, according to the IDF.
غارة عنيفة على بوداي في #بعلبك pic.twitter.com/FM7WQptCze
— kataeb.org (@kataeb_Ar) March 26, 2024
In additional strikes Tuesday, the IDF said fighter jets struck a Hezbollah weapons depot in Hanine and another site in Beit Yahoun.
Overnight, the IDF said two rockets were fired from Lebanon toward the northern border communities of Shlomi and Betzet, where sirens sounded at 12:50 a.m.
Footage showed damage to a home in Betzet as a result of one of the rockets. Another video showed damage to an agricultural area, with the Walla news site reporting that high-tension electricity cables were severed as a result of the attack.
Hezbollah claimed the attack.
כך נראה בית במושב בגליל המערבי שניזוק הלילה מירי רקטה מלבנון@rubih67 pic.twitter.com/o5gjWxDGlK
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) March 26, 2024
The IDF said fighter jets carried out airstrikes on buildings used by Hezbollah in Tayr Harfa and Dhayra in southern Lebanon during the night, as well as attacking the source of the overnight rocket fire.
מטוסי קרב תקפו במהלך הלילה מבנה צבאי של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב טיר חרפה ומבנה צבאי נוסף של הארגון במרחב א-דהירה.
במהלך הלילה, זוהו שני שיגורים משטח לבנון לעבר מרחב שלומי, צה"ל תקף את מקורות הירי pic.twitter.com/hkQTGIe7An
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) March 26, 2024
Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis with rockets, drones, anti-tank missiles, and other means, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there. Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy in Lebanon and Palestinian terror groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are backed by Iran.
The IDF has regularly responded with strikes in Lebanon, while warning it will no longer tolerate Hezbollah’s presence on the frontier and warning of war in the north should ongoing international efforts fail to remove the terror group’s forces from the border area.
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 253 hostages, mostly civilians.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a wide-scale military campaign in Gaza. Hamas’s Iran-backed ally Hezbollah responded with strikes and attacks on the northern front.

So far, the skirmishes on the northern border have resulted in seven civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 10 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Hezbollah has named 248 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon, but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 42 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and at least 50 civilians, three of whom were journalists, have been killed.
Amid the constant attacks from Lebanon, Israeli officials maintain the country will no longer accept Hezbollah’s presence along the border, which is in contravention of the UN resolution that ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War. They say from those positions, the terrorists could launch an attack similar to Hamas’s October 7 attacks in southern Israel.
Jerusalem also says the situation whereby tens of thousands of northern residents have been driven from their homes for months by Hezbollah’s attacks is intolerable and unsustainable.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned in February that a possible truce in Gaza would not affect Israel’s “objective” of pushing Hezbollah back from its northern border, by force or diplomacy.