The Hezbollah terror group fired several anti-tank guided missiles at an army base and a military jeep just inside northern Israel’s border with Lebanon on Sunday afternoon, causing no injuries, the Israel Defense Forces said.
Military sources said that the vehicle was empty when it was struck, but that soldiers had been inside half an hour earlier. IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus initially said that the armored jeep had been painted with a red Jewish star, identifying it as an ambulance, but later retracted the claim and clarified that the vehicle had been used as an ambulance but was not marked as such.
In response to the attack, the Israeli military said its artillery cannons and attack helicopters fired approximately 100 shells and bombs at Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.
Conricus said the IDF considered the “tactical event on the ground” to be over as of Sunday evening, but that the larger strategic threat posed by Hezbollah on the border remained. The IDF remained on high alert Sunday evening, officials said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said no Israelis were so much as “scratched” by the Hezbollah attack. “There were no Israeli injuries, not even a scratch,” Netanyahu said, smiling, at the opening of a Honduras diplomatic office in Jerusalem.
The military said Hezbollah operatives fired two or three missiles at a battalion headquarters outside of the Israeli community of Avivim and at military vehicles nearby shortly after 4:15 p.m. Sunday. Several of the projectiles struck their targets but did not cause any casualties, despite claims to the contrary by Hezbollah, the IDF said.
The Iran-backed terror group took responsibility for the missile strikes, saying in a statement that its fighters “destroyed an ‘Israeli’ military vehicle on the Avivim barracks road [in northern Israel] and killed and injured those in it.”
A senior Iranian security official praised Hezbollah’s firing of anti-tank missiles from Lebanon at Israeli territory on Sunday, as the deputy leader of the Iran-backed terror group said the attack changed the rules of the game.
Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said the attack demonstrated the willingness of Tehran and its proxies to confront Israel, the United States and allied regional countries, according to the Mehr news agency.
Hezbollah indicated the attack was in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike in Syria last month that killed several operatives, including two of its members. Israel said that strike was to thwart an Iranian plot to launch explosives-laded drones at Israeli territory. IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi accused a top Iranian general of personally overseeing the plan.
The Lebanese terror group has also accused Israel of being behind a recent drone attack in Beirut that reportedly damaged materials for Hezbollah’s missile program.
Naim Qassem, the deputy head of Hezbollah, boasted after Sunday’s anti-tank missile fire that Israel would be deterred from future strikes.
“Hezbollah succeeded in proving the balance of power and forced upon Israel new rules of engagement,” he was quoted as saying by the Ynet news site. “Hezbollah wants to preserve its deterrence and the rules of engagement.”
The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, meanwhile, condemned the Hezbollah attack.
“This is a serious incident in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and clearly directed at undermining stability in the area,” UNIFIL commander Maj. Gen. Stefano Del Col said in a statement, referring to the UN resolution ending the 2005 Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah.
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