Hezbollah missile strikes on Haifa injure 10, fend off Israeli military in Maroun al-Ras

Hezbollah announced shortly after midnight on Monday that it had launched a salvo of Fadi 1 missiles at the Israeli Karmal military base in southern Haifa.

The rockets struck several areas in Israel in both Haifa and Tiberias on Sunday night, injuring 10 people and damaging several buildings, according to Israeli media.

The strike was the first in which Hezbollah has hit cities deep in Israeli territory since the 2006 war. The missiles also targeted the Namira base west of Tiberias, the statement said.

Hezbollah said the attack was in response to the massacres and targeting of civilians committed by the Israeli enemy, saying that “the Islamic Resistance will remain ready to defend Lebanon and its steadfast, oppressed people.”

Hezbollah also said on Monday morning that it targeted a gathering of Israeli military vehicles and personnel at the Maroun al-Ras garden.

Maroun al-Ras, a village near the border of southern Lebanon, has been a focal point for Israeli efforts to invade the country since last week, with Hezbollah fighters deploying multiple attempted incursions by Israeli forces at the location in recent days.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) also expressed worry regarding Israeli movements in Maroun al-Ras on Sunday night, saying that they put the UN peacekeeping force in danger. “UNIFIL is deeply concerned by recent activities by the IDF immediately adjacent to the Mission’s position 6-52, southeast of Marun ar Ras (Sector West), inside Lebanese territory,” the statement said.

A UN source told the Associated Press that the Israeli military has been setting up a forward operating base just south of the UN-mandated Blue Line separating Lebanon from Israel and the Golan Heights since 2000, which puts the Irish peacekeepers stationed there at risk.

“This is an extremely dangerous development. It is unacceptable to compromise the safety of UN peacekeepers carrying out their Security Council-mandated tasks,” the UNIFIL statement added.

UNIFIL stated last week that the Israeli military had requested that they withdraw from posts along the Blue Line, which was established in 2000 as the point behind which Israeli forces occupying Lebanon should withdraw. UNIFIL rejected the request.

Hezbollah announced on Monday that resistance fighters had also launched rocket salvos at Israeli soldiers behind Jal al-Alam and at the Kfar Vradim settlement in northern Israel.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military announced another of its “limited” military operations in southern Lebanon, stating that its 91st Division had begun the new operation on Saturday. Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee warned residents who were displaced from southern Lebanon not to return until further notice and issued a further round of evacuation orders for areas across the southern governorates of Nabatieh and South.

Israeli airstrikes against Beirut, Mount Lebanon and southern Lebanon continued between Sunday and Monday, killing at least six people on Sunday night, including three children, and injuring at least 11 more, in a strike on Qmatiyeh village in Mount Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. Raids, which have become nightly, also targeted Beirut’s southern suburb.

Southern Lebanese villages witnessed multiple Israeli aerial raids on Monday, including a strike on the fire station affiliated with the Islamic Health Authority in the town of Brashit, which killed ten firefighters, according to the Health Ministry. Work was ongoing to retrieve those who were targeted in the center from under the rubble, the ministry said.

Two more people were killed in a raid that targeted Qilya town in West Beqaa.

The websites for Lebanese news outlets Al Mayadeen and Al-Akhbar, which support Hezbollah, seem to have both gone offline today. A post on Al Mayadeen’s X account said the TV network’s website and social media pages are facing a cyberattack.