Hezbollah Strikes Eight IDF Soldiers, Including the Son of Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich

BEIRUT — Eight IDF soldiers were wounded, five seriously, in a rocket attack by Hezbollah in northern Israel on Friday. The rockets struck a position of soldiers near the Lebanon-Israel border. The Times of Israel reports that the soldiers were from the elite IDF unit, the Givati Brigade. They were transported to hospital for treatment. Five people were in serious condition and three others were lightly injured, according to the military. Among those lightly wounded by the rocket attack was the son of Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich, according to the minister’s office. Smotrich is one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet ministers who most often spouts hatred toward Palestinians and Muslims. He has repeatedly called for the extermination of Palestinians and the expansion of Israeli territory. He has also pushed for the destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque to make it a Jewish temple. The Hezbollah attack on Israel has recently intensified as a response to the US-Israel attack on Iran. The group has long been an ally of Iran in the region. On Friday morning, referring to Al-Mayadeen, Hezbollah’s military media issued a statement calling on settlers in the occupied northern Palestinian region to evacuate all settlements within five kilometres of the border, warning that Israel’s occupation aggression against Lebanon, including attacks on civilians, the destruction of infrastructure, and mass displacement, will not be left unanswered. At dawn, Hezbollah launched a coordinated attack using rocket salvos and artillery shells at Israeli army positions and troop concentrations in the settlements of Metula, Manara, Marj, and Givat HaEgel, as well as the Yiftah barracks along the Lebanon-Palestine border. Resistance fighters also attacked positions and concentrations of Israeli troops in Wadi al-Asafir and Talat al-Hamamis in the town of al-Khiam, the gate of Kfar Kila, the frontline Israeli position newly built in the town of Markaba within Lebanese territory, attacked for the third time, and the positions of Ruwaysat al-Alam on the Kfar Shuba hills occupied by Lebanon. A separate operation targeted the line of Israeli military vehicles moving from Wadi al-Asafir toward the southern district of al-Khiam. The resistance reported a direct attack, forcing the vehicles to retreat. The al-Malikiya site was also struck by a missile attack at dawn. Soon after, the resistance fighters targeted a convoy of occupation vehicles at a newly established Israeli military site in the town of Markaba, marking the first in a series of attacks on that position throughout the day. The warning followed an unprecedented evacuation threat issued by Israeli refugees on Thursday to the entire neighbourhoods on the southern outskirts of Beirut, including Bourj el-Barajneh, Hadath, Haret Hreik, and Chiyah, which are home to hundreds of thousands of civilians.