Hezbollah rockets strike Haifa as tensions escalate in Northern Israel
- In Reports
- 08:27 PM, Oct 07, 2024
- Myind Staff
The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah on Sunday fired five rockets towards the northern Israeli port city of Haifa, damaging it and wounding eight people, according to Israeli officials. Its air defences failed to intercept the rockets, according to the Israeli military, which said it was looking into why. South of Haifa is a military base that Hezbollah claimed to have targeted.
Across the Sea of Galilee to the east lies the town of Tiberias, which was hit by a flurry of rockets, injuring one more person. Meanwhile, Israeli aircraft launched a fresh round of airstrikes on targets claimed to be Hezbollah in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. Hezbollah claimed that its fighters were hitting Israeli troops in and around border villages in southern Lebanon, where the military announced the addition of a third division to its invasion.
After a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the Gaza war, the Israeli government has promised to ensure that tens of thousands of displaced residents can safely return to their homes near the Lebanese border. Since Hezbollah started launching rockets into northern Israel on October 8, 2023, in support of the Palestinians, the day after its ally Hamas's devastating attack on southern Israel, the hostilities have steadily increased.
Despite taking a number of severe hits in recent weeks, Hezbollah has remained resilient and insisted on Monday that it was sure it could "repel the [Israeli] aggression." The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) report stated that on Sunday, Hezbollah launched over 135 rockets into northern Israel. According to an IDF statement, at 23:22 local time (20:22 GMT), air raid sirens went off in the Carmel and Bay areas of Haifa, causing about five projectiles to cross from Lebanon. “Interceptors were fired. Fallen projectiles were identified in the area. The incident is under review,” it added.
The BBC Verify geolocated CCTV footage captures the exact moment when one of the rockets struck a roundabout close to a grocery store and multiple apartment buildings in the eastern part of the city. In an additional video, onlookers and emergency personnel can be seen examining a crater and heaps of dirt and debris at the location.
The Reuters news agency was informed by emergency services personnel Tal Rosen that he heard an explosion while inside his home approximately 500 meters (1,640 feet) away. “In the beginning, we didn't find any injuries and then I saw in this building,” he stated, pointing towards damaged windows on the side of a nearby apartment block. “There were shards of glass in this building. I went inside and I found four people [with] minor to moderate [injuries]."
A 22-year-old man in wounded condition with both a blast injury and a head injury from falling through a window, as well as a 13-year-old boy in an injured condition with shrapnel injuries to his head, were treated by Israel's Magen David Adom (MDA) ambulance service. Hezbollah claimed late on Sunday that it had retaliated against the Israeli airstrike that killed its leader Hassan Nasrallah last month by firing "a salvo of Fadi 1 rockets at the Carmel base south of Haifa."
Following a separate rocket attack on the town of Tiberias, approximately 50 km (30 miles) to the east, the MDA also reported that a man in his 20s was suffering from shrapnel injuries to his chest and abdomen. The man's condition was described as serious but stable. About fifteen projectiles were detected crossing from Lebanon at the same time as the Haifa attack, according to the IDF. This indicates that some were intercepted and others fell nearby.
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