Barrages of Hezbollah rockets continued to pound northern Israel on Wednesday, as the IDF carried out fresh waves of airstrikes in south Lebanon and warned that a ground offensive could be the next step.
The terror group launched a barrage of 30 rockets toward the Western Galilee and towns east of Haifa on Wednesday afternoon, wounding two people in a direct impact in Kibbutz Sa’ar near Nahariya.
Magen David Adom said a 35-year-old man was seriously wounded by shrapnel and a 52-year-old man was moderately hurt. Both were taken to Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya. Reports said the pair were running to seek shelter when the rocket hit nearby.
The barrage came not long after the terror group fired waves of rockets at the Carmel and Wadi Aras area in northern Israel as well as the city of Safed. Hours earlier, Hezbollah fired a ballistic missile at the Tel Aviv area for the first time, amid the fiercest cross-border fighting in close to 20 years.
Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin, the chief of the IDF Northern Command, said the military needs to be “strongly prepared” for a ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“We have entered another phase of the campaign… The operation began with a very significant blow to Hezbollah’s capabilities, with an emphasis on [rocket] capabilities, and a very significant blow to the commanders and members of the organization,” Gordin said while visiting a drill simulating a ground operation in Lebanon on Tuesday, in remarks released by the IDF on Wednesday.
“We need to change the security situation. We need to be very strongly prepared to enter in a [ground] maneuver,” he added.
The IDF said Wednesday afternoon that it was calling up two reserve brigades to be deployed to northern Israel.
The military said the move, made following a fresh assessment, “will allow the continuation of the fighting effort against the Hezbollah terror organization, the protection of the citizens of the State of Israel, and the creation of the conditions for the safe return of the [displaced] residents of the north to their homes.”
Meanwhile, the IDF said Israeli Air Force fighter jets had struck more than 280 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon throughout Wednesday, with dozens of fighter jets participating in the strikes.
This included strikes on around 60 sites belonging to the Hezbollah intelligence division across Lebanon on Wednesday. The military said that the strikes carried out by fighter jets destroyed surveillance equipment, command rooms, and other infrastructure used by Hezbollah to build an intelligence picture.
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