IDF cancels Lag B’Omer celebrations on Mount Meron over Hezbollah attack risk
Police asked to prevent worshipers from reaching rabbi’s grave for annual pilgrimage; rocket attack from Lebanon sparks blaze in northern town
The IDF Home Front Command said Thursday it was cancelling Lag B’Omer celebrations at Mount Meron later this month, following a new assessment.
Hezbollah has attacked Mount Meron, which is located some eight kilometers (five miles) from the Lebanon border, several times amid the ongoing war, launching large barrages of rockets at the mountain, as well as guided missiles at the Israeli air traffic control base that sits atop it.
The military has requested police to prevent worshippers from reaching the mountain between May 24 and 27, when an annual pilgrimage takes place.
There were no other changes to instructions for civilians in the area, the IDF said.
Normally, tens of thousands of observant Jews visit the grave of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on the mountain during Lag B’Omer, though festivities were muted in 2022 following a crush during the previous year’s pilgrimage in which 45 people were killed.
The IDF’s announcement Thursday came as the Hezbollah terror group launched repeated rocket and drone attacks at northern Israel throughout the day.
Several of the rockets sparked a fire in the border community of Shlomi, according to the IDF. Firefighters were dispatched to the scene to extinguish the blaze.
שלומי במטח בורקאן 17:09. כמה עשרות מטרים משכונת מגורים. אין נפגעים. יש נזקי הדף לבתים @WallaNews pic.twitter.com/uONSnmT9Zs
— יואב איתיאל מדווח כי (@yoavetiel) May 9, 2024
In response to the attacks, the military said early Thursday that Israeli fighter jets struck buildings and other infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah in the southern Lebanon towns of Kafr Kila, Alma ash-Shab, and Yaroun. Hours before, the IDF said fighter jets struck a building used by Hezbollah in Ayta ash-Shab.
Earlier Thursday, Lebanese security sources told Reuters that an alleged Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon killed four Hezbollah members. Following the strike, Hezbollah announced the death of three members killed “on the road to Jerusalem,” its term for operatives slain in Israeli strikes.
The alleged strike came a day after an Israeli soldier was killed in a Hezbollah-claimed mortar and missile attack on an army position in the area of the northern community of Malkia.
Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war sparked by Hamas’s terror onslaught in southern Israel.
The skirmishes on the border have resulted in nine civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 14 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
Hezbollah has named 294 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 59 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier and at least 60 civilians have been killed.
Israel has threatened to go to war to force Hezbollah away from the border if it does not retreat and continues to threaten northern communities, where some 70,000 people have been evacuated to avoid the fighting.
