IDF strikes Hezbollah position in Lebanon after missiles fired at border post
Terror group says attack a response to members killed in earlier Israeli strike, amid days of clashes on northern frontier
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
The Lebanese Hezbollah terror group launched anti-tank guided missiles at an Israeli army post on the northern border on Wednesday. The Israel Defense Forces said it responded with a drone strike on a Hezbollah post, as fighting continued in southern Israel in the wake of a devastating attack launched by the Palestinian Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip.
There have been several deadly clashes on the northern border in recent days, some of them claimed by Palestinian terror groups operating out of Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon, and others by Hezbollah themselves.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the anti-tank guided missile attack on an Israeli army post near the northern Israeli village of Arab al-Aramshe.
In a statement, the group said the attack was a response to the deaths of three members in Israeli strikes on Monday, which came in response to earlier clashes on the border.
Hezbollah claimed it caused “a large number of confirmed casualties” in the missile attack.
The IDF said it carried out strikes in Lebanon in response to the attack but did not immediately provide information on casualties.
The military said a drone struck a Hezbollah post in southern Lebanon and artillery shelled the source of the missile fire.
Amid the incidents on the border, an incoming rocket siren sounded in Arab al-Aramshe, which the military later said was a false alarm.
On Tuesday night, Hezbollah carried out a separate anti-tank missile attack against an unoccupied IDF armored vehicle on the Lebanon border.
That attack came after 15 rockets were launched from Lebanon at the Western Galilee, causing no injuries. The Gaza Strip-based Hamas later claimed responsibility for the rocket attack from Lebanon.
The IDF said it hit three Hezbollah posts in response to the rocket fire and anti-tank missile attack on Tuesday.
On Monday, Israeli forces clashed with terrorists on the Lebanon border. The clashes left three Israeli soldiers and two Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists dead. Three Hezbollah members were killed in Israel’s retaliatory bombing against the terror group’s sites.
Rockets were also launched at Israel from Lebanon on Sunday and Monday.
Hezbollah has largely sat out previous rounds of fighting between Israel and Palestinian terror groups, though it allowed local Palestinian factions to operate out of its territory in southern Lebanon.
The military has bolstered forces in northern Israel, amid fears the Lebanon-based terror group will open up a second front amid the war triggered by Saturday’s unprecedented invasion of Israel by hundreds of Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip.
Amid the tensions in northern Israel, many residents of towns close to the border with Lebanon have left their homes over the past day, fearing further rocket attacks.
Wednesday’s missile fire from Lebanon came as hundreds of rockets continued to be launched from the Gaza Strip at southern and central Israel.
On Saturday morning, Palestinian terrorists rampaged through the south of the country, killing some 1,000 people, the vast majority of them civilians, and taking at least 100 captives to Gaza. Since then the Israeli toll has risen to over 1,200 dead and thousands of injured.
