Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday held an operational situation assessment at the IDF’s Northern Command headquarters, where he was briefed on operations against Hezbollah targets across Lebanon and defensive measures being implemented amid ongoing rocket and drone fire.
“The past week has been the most difficult in the history of Hezbollah’s existence – especially over the past day,” said Gallant.
“The action taken by the IDF in [the Beirut neighborhood of] Dahiyeh is significant, important and powerful,” he added, referring to the Israeli strike on Friday that killed senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil, along with other top Hezbollah commanders.
“We have a [clear] goal – ensuring the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes – and we will take all the necessary measures to achieve it,” said Gallant.
“We will continue using all the means at our disposal in order to achieve our goals, as determined by Israel’s government, and as is our duty to our citizens in northern Israel,” he added.
Last week, thousands of Hezbollah terrorists were wounded and at least a dozen were killed when their pagers and radio devices exploded across Lebanon. Hezbollah immediately blamed the Jewish state’s intelligence agencies for both attacks.
Jerusalem has declined to comment on the blasts – the first wave of which came hours after the Israeli cabinet added the return of displaced northern residents to their homes to the country’s war goals.
Speaking on Sunday during a visit to the Israeli Air Force’s Tel Nof base in central Israel, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said: “The price that Hezbollah is paying has increased, our attacks will increase.”
The IDF, “will safely return the residents to their homes, and if Hezbollah has not understood this yet, it will get another blow and another blow – until the organisation understands,” he continued.
Halevi warned that the IDF has “many more capabilities that we have not yet activated” and stressed Israel was “at a very high level of readiness both in attack and defence.”
Overnight Saturday and through Sunday morning, Hezbollah launched more than 100 rockets and drones at northern Israel in several waves, causing several injuries and heavily damaging a number of residential buildings and vehicles.
Though the IDF’s aerial defence array intercepted a number of the projectiles, rockets hit the Haifa suburb of Kiryat Bialik and Moreshet, a community in the Lower Galilee, the military said.
Hezbollah took responsibility for the waves of attacks, stating that it had launched “dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles” at the Ramat David Airbase south east of Haifa and the Rafael Advanced Defence Systems facility north of Haifa.
This was reportedly the first time since it began attacking Israel on October 8 that the terror group has deployed this type of medium-range weapon.
Since Saturday afternoon, Israel has struck hundreds of targets in Southern Lebanon, including thousands of launcher barrels and additional terrorist infrastructure.
The Israeli strikes continued on Monday morning, targeting Hezbollah assets in Southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.
Israel has dealt Hezbollah “a series of blows it couldn’t have imagined,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.
“If Hezbollah did not understand the message, I promise you: It will understand the message.”
