Hezbollah rains rockets on Israel after strike kills commander

The Israeli military said successive rocket barrages were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel Wednesday, after an Israeli strike killed a senior Hezbollah commander in south Lebanon the previous day.

Hezbollah identified the slain commander as Taleb Sami Abdallah, also known as Abu Taleb and born in 1969.

The Israeli military confirmed that it had killed the commander as well as three other fighters during the strike on a command-and-control center.

A top Hezbollah official vowed Wednesday that the militant group would step up its attacks on Israel, after its arch-foe killed a senior commander in south Lebanon the day before.

“We will increase the intensity, strength, quantity and quality of our attacks,” said Hashem Safieddine, speaking at the funeral of the slain commander.

Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has traded near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army since its Palestinian ally Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in Gaza.

“A short while ago, approximately 90 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon,” the Israeli military said in a statement, adding that several were intercepted but others struck inside Israel sparking fires in parts of the north.

As temperatures have soared in recent days, the exchanges of fire have sparked multiple brush fires on both sides of the border.

The initial barrage was followed by a second of around 70 projectiles a short time later, the military said.

Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency medical service said there were no immediate reports of any casualties.

The latest barrages from Lebanon came after an Israeli strike killed a senior Hezbollah commander on Tuesday.

Hezbollah said it launched “dozens of Katyusha rockets” at three bases in northern Israel and struck a “military factory” with guided missiles “in response to the assassination carried out by the Zionist enemy.”

Hezbollah announced seven of its fighters had been killed by Israeli fire since Tuesday, with a source close to the group saying four of them were killed alongside Abdullah.

A Lebanese military source said the commander was “the most important in Hezbollah to be killed up to now since the start of the war.”

The source said the Israeli strike hit the town of Jouaiyya, 15 kilometers (nine miles) from the border.

It came after Hezbollah fired some 50 rockets earlier Tuesday at Israeli positions in the annexed Golan Heights.

More than eight months of cross-border violence has killed at least 467 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including almost 90 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israeli authorities say at least 15 Israeli soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides of the border since the violence erupted the day after the Hamas attack on Israel.

The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 37,164 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.