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Army strikes Hezbollah command room embedded in mosque within hospital compound as troops continue raids in south Lebanon; 3 lightly injured by Hezbollah rocket.
The Israel Defense Forces continued its campaign to degrade Hezbollah in Lebanon on Saturday as it targeted command centers, weapons caches, tunnels and more, and as the military said it believed it had killed some 400 Hezbollah operatives since the start of ground operations on Monday.
The army said on Saturday said it had struck Hezbollah operatives overnight in a command center embedded in a mosque in southern Lebanon’s Bint Jbeil, located within the Martyr Salah Ghandour Hospital compound.
According to the military, the operatives were using the command room “to plan and carry out acts of terror against IDF troops and the State of Israel.”
The IDF said the drone strike was “precise” and based on intelligence.
Before carrying out the strike, the IDF said it sent text messages to residents and called up officials in the nearby villages “demanding that all acts of terror carried out at the hospital cease immediately.”
Meanwhile, three people were lightly injured as a result of a Hezbollah rocket impact in the northern Arab village of Deir al-Asad, police and medics said. They were taken to Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya.
The Magen David Adom emergency service said it had treated 10 people for acute anxiety after the rocket hit Deir al-Asad.
Police said officers operated at several scenes of rocket impacts in Karmiel and Deir al-Asad.
Earlier, two rockets were launched from Lebanon at the Haifa Bay area.
The IDF said one of the rockets was intercepted, while the second struck an open area. There were no reports of injuries or major damage in the attack.
Around noon, the IDF said it had shot down a suspected drone launched from Lebanon over the northern community of Adamit. Sirens had sounded in the area amid the incident.
A barrage of five rockets was also launched in the morning from Lebanon at northern Israel, setting off sirens in many towns in the Jezreel Valley and Wadi Ara area, including Nazareth.
The IDF said some of the rockets were intercepted by air defenses while the rest impacted open areas. There were no reports of injuries.
Army hits Hezbollah caches, smuggling routes
Troops of the IDF’s Commando Brigade and elite Yahalom Unit demolished several Hezbollah tunnel shafts that were used by operatives to get close to the Israeli border in southern Lebanon, the military said.
The soldiers also located and demolished underground caches of weapons, observation posts, and rocket launching sites in villages in southern Lebanon.
Dozens of Hezbollah operatives were killed in airstrikes directed by the commandos, the military added.
Separately, the IDF released footage of Hezbollah weapons captured by troops from the Golani Brigade in southern Lebanon. The brigade, operating under the 36th Division, has been working to clear southern Lebanese villages of Hezbollah infrastructure and weapons.
The IDF said troops located caches of weapons and tunnel shafts and killed several Hezbollah gunmen during the operations.
Some of the weapon caches, which were later destroyed, were located inside civilian homes, according to the military.
Hezbollah said Saturday that it was engaged in ongoing clashes with Israeli troops in the border area after earlier claiming it had forced Israeli soldiers to retreat there.
“Israeli enemy soldiers renewed an attempt to advance towards the vicinity of the municipality in the village of Odaisseh” and Hezbollah fighters confronted the attempt “and clashes are continuing,” the terror group said in a statement.
The group also said it had targeted troops in the Yaroun area and in two points across the border with rockets.
There were no reports of Israeli injuries.
Over 400 Hezbollah gunmen killed
The IDF assessed Saturday that it had killed more than 400 Hezbollah operatives during ground operations in southern Lebanon, which began on Monday.
The operatives, including many field commanders, were killed both in airstrikes and in fighting with IDF troops, according to the military.
The field commanders include officers in charge of various regional units and villages in southern Lebanon, the IDF said.
The Israeli ground operations in southern Lebanon have been described by the IDF as “limited, localized, and targeted raids,” with the goal of demolishing Hezbollah’s infrastructure in the border area, especially in the villages adjacent to Israel, to enable residents of the north to return home.
The raids are focusing on Hezbollah’s “centers of gravity” in southern Lebanon villages, where troops have so far found massive amounts of weapons. Israel says Hezbollah was planning a largescale October 7-style attack on northern communities to massacre and kidnap Israeli civilians.
The IDF has said the operations in southern Lebanon will expand as needed, but that it still intends for the operations to end as quickly as possible — within a few weeks.
Amid the raids on Hezbollah’s smuggling routes, an Iranian aircraft suspected of ferrying weapons to the Iran-backed terror group made a U-turn in midair after IDF warnings.
Data from flight tracking websites showed that the Qeshm Fars Air flight from Tehran, heading for Lebanon or Syria, went back on its tracks over Iraqi airspace on Saturday. The flight was allegedly carrying weapons for Hezbollah.
The IDF has said that its “military blockade” on weapons transfers to Lebanon will likely continue for a long time. As part of the blockade, aimed at preventing Iranian arms from being delivered to Hezbollah, the IDF has struck all of the “military” crossings between Lebanon and Syria — including a major tunnel — and also hit a civilian crossing after accusing Hezbollah of using it to smuggle arms.
The IDF has also warned it would foil any attempts by Iran to transfer weapons to Hezbollah via Beirut’s civilian airport.
Separately, the IDF has allegedly struck several warehouses in Syria in recent days that were believed by the military to have been used to store Iranian weapons intended for Hezbollah.
Meanwhile the potential successor to slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been out of contact since Friday, a Lebanese security source said on Saturday, after an Israeli airstrike that is reported to have targeted him.
In its campaign against the Iran-backed Lebanese terror group, Israel carried out a large strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs late on Thursday, which, according to Israeli officials cited by Axios, targeted Hashem Safieddine in an underground bunker.
Channel 12 reported Friday night that security officials were increasingly confident he had been killed. The IDF said on Friday it was still assessing the Thursday night airstrikes, which it said targeted Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters.
Israel killed Nasrallah on September 28 amid a series of strikes that decimated the terror group’s top command.
The IDF and Shin Bet security agency also said in a joint statement Saturday that two senior Hamas commanders were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon.
The first strike, which took place overnight in the Beddawi Palestinian camp near the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli targeted and killed Saeed Atallah Ali. According to the IDF and Shin Bet, Ali advanced terror attacks against Israel and worked to recruit more members to Hamas in Lebanon.
Hamas confirmed Ali’s death, calling him a field commander.
The second strike, which took place near the Beqaa Valley town of Saadnayel, targeted and killed Mohammed Hussein al-Lawis. The IDF and Shin Bet described al-Lawis as Hamas’s “executive authority in Lebanon” and said he directed terror attacks in the West Bank.
The statement added that al-Lawis was also responsible for “Hamas’s entrenchment inside Lebanon, using it to supply weapons for rocket attacks against Israel and in attempts to manufacture advanced weaponry.”
