BEIRUT: Hezbollah on Sunday said it fired Katyusha rockets at northern Israel in response to Israeli strikes that hit a weapons depot and other sites.
Two Hezbollah members were killed when an Israeli military drone targeted a house in the southern border village of Houla with a guided missile, 12 hours after a Hezbollah weapons and ammunition depot was targeted for the first time since the outset of hostilities nine months ago.
The strike on the depot, located in Adloun — a town between Saida and Tyre, 30 km from the Israeli border — killed another Hezbollah member and injured several other people, according to Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
The Israeli military confirmed on Sunday morning that it targeted two Hezbollah sites.
Hezbollah initially refused to comment on the attack on the Adloun depot in the immediate aftermath of the Israeli strike.
However, it later targeted the Israeli Dafna settlement with Katyusha missiles in response to the raid.
Hezbollah also targeted Al-Ramtha and Al-Semmaqah in the occupied Kfarshouba hills with missiles.
Israeli media outlets stated that the missiles landed in Dalton in Galilee. According to Israeli Army Radio, 45 missiles were launched from Lebanon towards northern Israel over the course of an hour, and a factory was directly hit in the settlement of Amir.
Hezbollah confirmed the deaths of Mustafa Hassan Fawaz, aged 49, from the Lebanese southern village of Debaal; Ahamd Ali Moussa, born in 1985, from Houla; and the youngest Hezbollah victim to date since the outbreak of hostilities, Yassin Hussein Hussein, born in 2006, from Houla.
Following the raid on Adloun, massive explosions were heard at the site as far as 20 km away in all directions.
Shrapnel from the explosions reached the nearby towns of Kharayeb and Ansarieh as well as damaging Adloun itself, shattering windows and injuring several people, including four women who were transferred to hospital.
The Kharayeb Municipality called on residents “to stay home because of the flying shrapnel resulting from the shelling targeting Adloun.”
Emergency medical and fire response units could not access the area, and there were repeated calls for the public to “avoid the area as much as possible due to its hazardous nature.”
Lebanese security forces closed off the Sidon-Tyre highway entirely, rerouting traffic away from the the explosions.
A report published last month by the Israeli Alma Research Center revealed that Hezbollah “possesses thousands of missiles and precision shells, out of a total of 75,000 missiles and shells, including hundreds of anti-aircraft missiles, coastal missiles, cruise weapons, and underwater precision weapons.”
Meanwhile Israeli artillery shelling reached the outskirts of the border village of Aitaroun on Sunday, causing a fire in the area. Artillery shelling also targeted Maroun Al-Ras.
Israeli drone strikes on Saturday hit the region between Taybeh and Deir Siriane in Marjayoun, destroying a car parked near tents for Syrian refugees in the vicinity of Qalaia. The attack resulted in injuries to several children.
Hezbollah’s retaliatory strikes on Israeli military installations, meanwhile, resulted in injuries to several of its members due to drone explosions in Katzrin, south of the Golan Heights.
Al-Qassam Brigades also announced in a statement on Saturday afternoon that “the headquarters of the 300th Brigade — Shumira in the western sector of Upper Galilee was targeted by a missile attack” from southern Lebanon.
