The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said Tuesday it had launched its most significant attack on Israel since October, striking with aerial drones north of the city of Acre and setting off sirens on the country’s northern coast.
The militant group, Iran’s most powerful regional proxy, has engaged in an escalation of cross-border strikes with Israeli forces since the Gaza war began more than six months ago. In the latest strike, it said it launched a drone attack on an Israeli military barracks about 10 miles from the Lebanese border. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear.
The Israeli military said it had “successfully intercepted” two air attacks off the northern coast, but did not comment on Hezbollah’s claim that it had hit the military barracks.
Images broadcast Tuesday on Telegram channels affiliated with Hezbollah and geotagged by the New York Times show people on a beach in Acre looking up at the sky as sirens go off and an explosion is heard.
The attack followed Israel’s targeted killing of two Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon, both of whom the Israeli military said were involved in Hezbollah air operations. The killings overnight and Tuesday were the latest in a series of assassinations of Hezbollah commanders and fighters, as the Lebanese militant group increasingly uses self-detonating drones to target Israeli military sites.
Last week, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for a drone and missile attack in northern Israel, which left one dead and 16 soldiers and two civilians injured, in one of the group’s most devastating attacks in Israel in recent months.
Hwaida Saad, John Reiss And Arijeta Lajka reports contributed.
