VOA News | Sunday, August 25, 2024 
Israel acted on intelligence to preempt Hezbollah attack, security source says

Israel carried out its biggest assault on Lebanon’s Iranian proxy group Hezbollah in 10 months of fighting early Sunday, acting on what an Israeli security source told VOA was precise intelligence to stop thousands of rockets and drones from being launched into Israeli territory. The Israeli military said about 100 fighter jets struck more than 40 Hezbollah launch sites primed with thousands of rockets and drones in southern Lebanon shortly before 5 a.m. local time. Hezbollah is a U.S.-designated terror group and the main regional proxy force of Iran’s Islamist rulers. At around 5:30 a.m., Hezbollah began firing what the Israeli military said were more than 150 rockets and drones into northern Israel. One Israeli soldier was killed, and several were wounded in the attacks, which also caused some property damage. In a series of social media statements, Hezbollah said it launched more than 300 rockets and drones into Israel at dawn as part of what it described as its initial retaliation for Israel’s assassination of its top military commander, Fouad Shukur, in southern Beirut on July 30. “Our military operation for today has been completed and accomplished,” Hezbollah said, asserting that it was targeting Israeli military sites. Israeli reserves Brig. Gen. Jacob Nagel, a former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told VOA in a text message that Israel’s “precise intelligence worked very well” in detecting Hezbollah plans to strike deep into Israel with the aim of damaging both military and civilian facilities and harming civilians. The Israeli military said most of the Hezbollah rockets and…Read more