IAF retaliates in Lebanon after Hezbollah rocket hits northern base

The terrorist group also claimed credit for shooting down an Israeli drone flying over Lebanon.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Israel’s air force struck in Lebanon Saturday night after Hezbollah successfully damaged a northern base earlier in the day during a short barrage of UAV fire, Sky News in Arabic reported.

The IAF attacked in the Baalbek region deep into Lebanon, according to the report.

A Saudi outlet added that the targets were Hezbollah training centers and missile warehouses.

The IDF said its fighter jets hit “significant assets” belonging to the Iranian terror proxy.

The retaliatory strike followed the hit of a Burkan missile, which carries hundreds of kilograms of explosives, on the Givor base in the border town of Kiryat Shmona, which has been targeted hundreds of times since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war.

Walla reported military sources saying that the impact caused “enormous damage” to expensive infrastructure.

In addition to the destroyed buildings at the base, the force of the impact and widespread shrapnel also damaged a nearby shopping mall in the evacuated town.

Video uploaded to media sites showed several lightly constructed buildings in pieces on the base, which contains war rooms, weapons depots, offices and residences for army personnel.

No casualties were reported in the incident.

Hezbollah claimed that it shot around 100 rockets at Israel’s north over the weekend in retaliation for an IDF airstrike that killed one person, allegedly a medic. Several firefighting teams were called out to deal with blazes ignited in the summer heat by the falling rockets.

Warning sirens went off as far inland as Acre in the northern Galilee, with the army saying that a UAV aimed at the city had been “successfully intercepted by the IDF Aerial Defense Array.”

The terrorists also took credit for downing a Hermes 900 IAF drone operating in Lebanon. The IDF confirmed that “the aircraft was damaged and fell in Lebanese territory” and that it was investigating the incident.

An IDF spokesperson also said that shortly after the rocket fire hit Kiryat Shmona, the army destroyed the launcher which was the source of the fire. Two Hezbollah terrorists were also eliminated in a separate Israeli airstrike.

Hezbollah kept up the fire Sunday morning as well.

There was a barrage of seven Red Alert warnings from Israel’s air defense system due to incoming UAVs from Lebanon soon after 8Am.

Two that crossed into Israeli air space fell into open areas on the Golan Heights, igniting a fire near the town of Katzrin that was put out by local firefighters, with no damage caused.