Cartoon by Jacky Yarhi

IDF says some 4,500 Hezbollah targets hit, 300 operatives killed since start of war

The Times of Isreal: Israel has hit more than 4,500 Hezbollah targets since the start of the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, the IDF said on Tuesday after some 100 rockets were fired from Lebanon by the Iran-backed terror group earlier in the day.

According to the IDF’s estimates, more than 300 Hezbollah operatives have been killed, including five senior commanders, and 750 have been wounded by Israeli strikes across five months of daily skirmishes along the border.

Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war against the Hamas terror group.

Over the past months, the Northern Command has led strikes from the air against more than 1,200 targets, and another 3,100 sites were targeted from the ground using artillery and tanks, the IDF said.

The IDF noted that some of the 4,500 Hezbollah targets were stuck in Syria, including on Tuesday.

According to the military, the targets have included weapons depots, buildings used by Hezbollah for attacks, more than 150 observation posts along the border, some 70 command centers where terror operatives were gathered, more than 50 significant rocket launching positions, and dozens of squads carrying out anti-tank missile attacks.

Of the targeted sites, more than 450 were said by the IDF to have belonged to Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, which is believed by Israel to be tasked with potentially infiltrating the country.

The “intense strikes” against Hezbollah are causing damage to the terror group’s “air and ground capabilities as well as its top command,” the IDF said, adding that it is “constantly working to push Hezbollah’s forces and its systems out of southern Lebanon, and has carried out significant attacks in this area.”

Hezbollah has named more than 240 members who have been killed by Israel since October 8. Another 40 operatives from other terror groups have also been killed in strikes on southern Lebanon, as well as a Lebanese soldier and at least 30 civilians, three of whom were journalists.

The near-daily exchange of fire along the shared Israel-Lebanon border has caused seven civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 10 IDF soldiers and reservists.

The Iran-backed terror group took responsibility for firing around 100 rockets at northern Israel on Tuesday morning in two separate barrages, claiming that it had targeted two Israeli army bases in the Golan Heights with Katyusha rockets.

There were no reports of damage or injuries from the Hezbollah rockets, with footage showing some of the projectiles being intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system. Sirens had sounded in several communities in the northern Golan Heights and the Galilee Panhandle.

Sirens did not sound for the second barrage as the rockets impacted open areas, the army said.

After the barrages, the IDF said fighter jets struck three rocket launchers in southern Lebanon used in the attack.

The terror group said that the rocket fire was in response to recent Israeli attacks in Lebanon, including a strike on Monday night in Baalbek in the country’s northeast, which reportedly killed a civilian.

Baalbek, an area identified in the past as a Hezbollah stronghold, is nearly 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the Israeli border.

The IDF has stepped up its attacks on Baalbek in recent days and confirmed on Tuesday afternoon that it had once again hit Hezbollah sites in the area following the heavy rocket fire earlier in the day.

The strike was reported by Lebanese media outlets to have occurred near the town of Saraain, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Israel’s border, and images circulated online showed smoke rising from the targeted site >>>