Hezbollah fires dozens of rockets at north, hitting home but no injuries; IDF pounds Lebanon

Karmiel mayor says 3 residents were saved by being in safe room; having warned of major barrage, army launches multiple waves of strikes on launchers and other targets

Hezbollah launched a barrage of dozens of rockets at northern Israel and the northern West Bank Tuesday evening, one of which hit a home in the city of Karmiel, though nobody was hurt.

The attack came hours after the Israel Defense Forces warned of a planned major barrage, with the military carrying out multiple waves of airstrikes before, during and after the launches to minimize the scale and further degrade the Lebanese terror group.

Sirens had sounded, in several waves, across the Galilee, near Kiryat Shmona, near Haifa, near Hadera and in several northern West Bank settlements amid the attack.

Many of the rockets were likely intercepted by air defenses and others struck open areas, according to military assessments.

But rescue services and local authorities said one rocket had directly hit the Karmiel home, causing considerable damage.

Karmiel Mayor Moshe Koninsky visited the damaged home, saying in a video statement that three people had been in its safe room and therefore weren’t hurt, and stressing the importance of adhering to Home Front Command instructions.

Some additional damage was caused by falling fragments of intercepted rockets, according to rescue services.

Five drones were also launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon at northern Israel amid the rocket barrage, all of which were intercepted, the IDF said.

Hours earlier, the military said it had identified preparations by the Iran-backed terror group to carry out major rocket fire at both northern and central Israel, adding that it was working to thwart it.

The army said it didn’t want to cause unnecessary panic among the public, and had therefore issued the public notice. Last week, the IDF acknowledged that it had been a mistake not to update the public ahead of a large Hezbollah rocket and drone attack on northern Israel, especially once Israel’s assessments of the planned barrage were leaked on social media and published by international media.

Throughout Tuesday and especially ahead of and after the barrage, the IDF released multiple statements saying it had struck Hezbollah rocket launchers, rocket-launching squads and other targets in various parts of Lebanon, as well as command centers and other sites in Beirut.

Some of the strikes were intended to thwart additional fire toward Israel, the IDF said. In some cases, the operatives and rocket launchers were hit before they could fire at Israel, and others were struck shortly after they did.

Later Tuesday, the IDF issued an evacuation warning for the coastal Lebanese city of Tyre and surrounding villages and refugee camps, ahead of further strikes on Hezbollah.

“Hezbollah’s terrorist activities are forcing the IDF to act against it with force. The IDF does not intend to harm you,” said spokesman Col. Avichay Adraee in a post on X. “For your safety, we call on you to evacuate your homes immediately according to the area shown on the map and move north of the Zahrani River.”

The IDF had already called on Thursday for all civilians in southern Lebanon to head to the north of the Zahrani River. It repeated the warning on Tuesday morning as well.

The army also said Tuesday that a day earlier, it had struck an underground Hezbollah site in southern Lebanon’s Kafra area used by the terror group to store cruise missiles and hundreds of rockets.

Meanwhile, as IDF ground forces were pushing deeper into Lebanon to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure after the terror group renewed hostilities earlier this month, Lebanon’s military said that three of its soldiers had been killed in two Israeli airstrikes in the country’s south, with the Israeli army maintaining its operations were not targeting Lebanese troops.

“Two soldiers were killed in an Israeli strike while traveling by motorcycle on the Zibdin-Nabatyieh road” in south Lebanon, the Lebanese army claimed in a statement.

It earlier said that another soldier had died from wounds sustained in a strike on a car and a motorcycle in the same area that also injured four others.

An official from the Lebanese military told AFP that the soldiers had just finished their duties for the day.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it was “aware of the claim that several soldiers of the Lebanese Armed Forces were injured as a result of an IDF strike.”

“The incident is under review,” the army said, adding that Israeli forces were operating “against the Hezbollah terrorist organization, and not against the Lebanese Armed Forces or Lebanese civilians.”

While Lebanon’s army has tried to stay out of the war, three Lebanese soldiers were killed by Israeli shelling earlier this month during a failed Israeli commando operation in eastern Lebanon.