Israel records 250 launches from Lebanon as Hezbollah targets Tel Aviv

JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said Hezbollah fired around 250 projectiles into its territory from Lebanon on Sunday, with the militants saying their attacks targeted the Tel Aviv area and Israel’s south.

The Iran-backed group said in a statement that it had “launched, for the first time, an aerial attack using a swarm of attack drones on the Ashdod naval base” in southern Israel.

Later, it said it fired “a barrage of advanced missiles and a swarm of attack drones” at a “military target” in Tel Aviv, and had also launched a volley of missiles at the Glilot army intelligence base in the city’s suburbs. Hezbollah has previously reported attacks against the Glilot base.

The Israeli military did not comment on the specific attack claims when contacted by AFP.

But it said earlier that air raid sirens had sounded in several locations in central and northern Israel, including in the Tel Aviv suburbs.

The army later told AFP around 250 projectiles that were fired by Hezbollah have crossed from Lebanon into Israel, updating the figure from 160 earlier on Sunday. Some of the projectiles were shot down.

The military said the highest number of projectiles, 350, was recorded on Sept 24, 2024.

Since Sept 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign, later sending in ground troops against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The war followed nearly a year of limited exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas after the Palestinian group’s Oct 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.

Medical agencies reported that at least 11 people were wounded in Israel, including a man in a “moderate to serious” condition.

The Palestine Red Crescent said 13 people were injured at the refugee camp of Tulkarem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank after an interceptor missile fell on several houses.

It added the injuries were “minor to moderate”, including burns, shrapnel and bruises.

AFP images from Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv, showed several damaged and burned-out cars, and a house pockmarked by shrapnel.

The wave of projectiles follows at least four deadly Israeli strikes in the heart of Beirut in the past week, including one that killed Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif.

In a speech on Wednesday, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said the response to the recent strikes on the capital “must be expected on central Tel Aviv”.

Lebanon’s health ministry says at least 3,670 people have been killed in the country since October 2023, most of them since September this year.