The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced late on April 17 that it had carried out airstrikes against a site belonging to Hezbollah’s air defense unit near the city of Baalbek in northeastern Lebanon.
Israeli fighter jets struck Hezbollah air defense infrastructure to the north of Baalbek, some 100 kilometers from the Israeli border, the IDF said in a brief statement, without providing any further details.
According to Lebanese media, the airstrikes took place near the town of Iaat. Videos of the airstrikes were posted to social media. There were no reports of casualties.
Baalbek is a known stronghold of Hezbollah. The strike marked the sixth time the IDF struck positions of the group near the city since the clashes on the border with Lebanon broke out on the backdrop of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.
The airstrikes deep in Lebanon came in response to an attack on the border settlement of Arab al-Aramshe earlier in the day, which wounded 14 Israeli troops and four civilians.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack, claiming it targeted a community center that was being used by a reconnaissance unit of the IDF with missiles and drones. In a statement, the group said that the attack was carried out in support of the Palestinian people and resistance in Gaza as well as in response to the killing of three of its fighters in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon a day earlier.
Video footage released later by the group’s Military Media revealed that Almas anti-tank guided missiles and Ababil-2 type suicide drones, both made by Iran, were used in the attack on the community center in Arab al-Aramshe.
Warning sirens did not sound during the attack. The IDF was investigating why the alarms were not activated beforehand and why the drones were not intercepted.
The strikes on Baalbek were not the end of Israel’s response. Early on April 18, the IDF launched a wave of airstrikes against southern Lebanon, the heartland of Hezbollah.
The IDF said in a statement that its fighter jets hit two buildings used by Hezbollah and other infrastructure in the town of Khiam And in the town of Kafr Kila, an airstrike killed two Hezbollah fighters, the IDF added. Hezbollah later acknowledged that two fighters were killed.
Since the outbreak of the Israeli war on Gaza last October, Hezbollah and its allies began launching near-daily attacks against the IDF in support of the Hamas Movement and other Palestinian armed factions in the Strip.
So far, the border clashes have resulted in eight civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of at least ten IDF soldiers and reservists. On the Lebanese side, more than 400 people have been killed, including 262 fighters of Hezbollah and at least 70 civilians.
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israel thinks it can air strike its way out of the hole its digging. cute
soon israel will wipe these muslims out. then they will restart their animal sacrifices in total rejection of god’s covenant. then god will destroy israel first, then the rest of the nations, which are all godless as well.
i pray for the coming destruction.
you are shameless and godless.
no he is right. you are all godless, evil, racist trash that must be removed from the earth.
is laughable and a sad joke to assume there is a usa government decision and saying when it comes to israel. we have become, since last century their bias, blind and submissive zionist clowns, colony, puppets and proxy. they own our banks, economy, media, judicial and political system and most of our military complex. they own us.