Hezbollah rocket injures 5 in north, buildings damaged in barrages as IDF strikes Lebanon

Homes hit in Metula and Safed, but none hurt; army says soldiers operating across the border exchanged fire with terror operatives, killing several

Five people were lightly hurt Saturday when a Hezbollah rocket struck a home in the northern town of Ma’alot-Tarshiha, medics said.

Magen David Adom said the five were hit by shrapnel following the rocket impact.

Hezbollah fired several rockets at northern Israel on Saturday, damaging a number of buildings and infrastructure, as the Israeli Air Force struck targets belonging to the terror group, and soldiers operating in south Lebanon killed gunmen in exchanges of fire.

A barrage of some 10 rockets was fired at the north around noon, with one rocket hitting a home in the northern town of Metula, damaging it. Rescue services said there were no injuries.

Sirens later sounded in the northern city of Safed and towns in the Galilee, as well as in the Golan Heights, while sirens warning of rocket fire and a suspected drone infiltration were activated in several towns in the Upper Galilee and the Galilee Panhandle.

One rocket struck Safed, causing slight damage to a road and nearby buildings. There were no reported injuries.

The Israel Defense Forces said troops killed several Hezbollah operatives during exchanges of fire in southern Lebanon, reporting no injuries among the Israeli forces.

According to the IDF, overnight, troops of the Givati Brigade spotted several armed Hezbollah gunmen during ground operations.

The soldiers exchanged fire with one of the operatives, killing him. The Givati troops then directed an Israeli Air Force drone to strike several more gunmen who had fired on the forces. A short while later, three more operatives were killed by tank shelling, the military said.

The army announced Saturday that its 162nd Division had completed preparations ahead of deployment in southern Lebanon. The military said the armored division was ready to “receive orders in accordance with the situational assessment.”

If the 162nd is deployed, it would bring the total number of IDF divisions operating in southern Lebanon to five.

The IDF has been preparing to deploy more forces in southern Lebanon and further expand its buffer zone to push away the threat of Hezbollah from the border.

The military also said Saturday that the Air Force had struck Hezbollah command centers in Beirut overnight. One site belonged to Hezbollah’s intelligence division, and another to its air defense unit, according to the military.

Those strikes came after the IDF reiterated an evacuation warning for the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, a Hezbollah stronghold.

Lebanese state media also said that an Israeli airstrike hit a house in a southern town early on Saturday, killing one person and wounding two others.

“Israeli fighter jets launched a heavy strike at dawn on a house in the town of Ghandouriyeh… resulting in one martyr and two wounded people who were pulled from under the rubble,” the official National News Agency said.

Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli attacks had killed over 1,000 people since the war began and displaced more than one million people. The death toll does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

On Friday, the US ambassador to Lebanon hailed the Lebanese president’s proposal to launch direct negotiations with Israel to put an end to the latest fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, as the Iran-backed terror group continued its attacks on the north.

Lebanon was pulled into the Middle East war when Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on March 2, to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“We appreciate the importance of the issue for the president and the importance of his responsibility in finally deciding that he must meet with the Israelis, because matters are not resolved without talking,” Michel Issa told journalists.

“Each party has their point of view of how meetings start,” he said, but he added that he believed Israel “has decided not to stop” striking Lebanon yet.

“That means Lebanon has to decide whether it can meet the Israelis in this case,” he said.

Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun, on March 9, proposed direct talks with Israel, but Israel has since said there are no talks planned. The IDF announced on Monday that it had launched “limited” ground operations in Lebanon due to the incessant rocket fire.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who spoke with Lebanese leaders last week, expressed hope on Thursday that Israel would agree to direct talks with Beirut, and offered to host talks in Paris.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah carried out sporadic rocket barrages and drone attacks on northern Israel on Friday, with no reports of injuries or major damage.

The Israeli military said Friday that it had killed over 570 Hezbollah operatives, including 220 members of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force, since hostilities escalated amid the war with Iran.

More than 2,000 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon have also been struck in the past three weeks, the IDF says, including 120 command centers, 100 weapon depots, and 130 missile launchers.