The exchange of fire between the Israeli army and the Lebanese group Hezbollah continued on Wednesday for the third consecutive day, after Israel launched its largest offensive against Lebanon since 2006 on Monday, leaving more than half a thousand dead and nearly 2,000 wounded, in addition to tens of thousands of people displaced from their homes.
On Wednesday morning, more than 40 projectiles hit Israeli territory from across the border, almost all of which were intercepted by Israeli air defenses. Only one of them hit the Safed area, but it did not cause any injuries, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Air raid sirens continued to sound in northern Israel and even in the center, when a surface-to-surface missile launched by Hezbollah sounded the alarm in Tel Aviv and the surrounding area.
IDF spokesman for international media Nadav Shoshani said this was the first long-range missile that the Shiite militia had launched against Tel Aviv in decades of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. For its part, the group announced in a statement that it had fired a “Qader-1” ballistic missile at the headquarters of the Mossad command in the suburbs of Tel Aviv on Wednesday at around 6:30 a.m. local time (5:30 a.m. in Spain). Shoshani questioned whether this was the objective of the attack, which was repelled and the missile destroyed.
Hezbollah’s Lebanese Al Manar television reported that with the launch, the group “introduced ballistic missiles into the battle.” The Qader cruise missiles are Iranian-made and medium-range.
The IDF denounced in a statement that “the terrorist organization Hezbollah continues to launch projectiles towards civilian areas and installations in Israel”, which is why the army “attacks terrorist targets and Hezbollah weapons warehouses” on Lebanese soil.
At least three people have died and more than a dozen have been injured in an Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese town of Ain Qana, according to the Arab country’s health ministry. Israeli airstrikes have continued since Monday, albeit with less intensity, particularly against areas in the south, from which Hezbollah usually launches rockets, missiles and drones toward Israel.
