Hezbollah targets Israeli mountain base in ‘largest air attack’

Beirut, July 8 – Hezbollah has said that it attacked with drones at Israel’s technical and electronic reconnaissance centre in Mount Hermon, north of Golan Heights, in response to Israel’s killing of a senior Hezbollah member on Saturday.

The well-equipped centre was set on fire, and its targeted devices were destroyed in the air attack by “successive squadrons of assault drones”, the Lebanese military group said in a statement on Sunday.

The group said the centre in Mount Hermon was targeted for the first time since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, and the operation is considered the largest by Hezbollah’s air force since October 8, 2023, Xinhua news agency reported.

Lebanese military sources told the news agency that the Lebanese army positions monitored the launch of several drones on Sunday afternoon from the Lebanese side to Israel, some of which had been intercepted by the Iron Dome system and Israeli warplanes.

On Saturday, the Israeli military killed Hezbollah commander Maysam Al-Attar in a drone strike on the city of Baalbek, eastern Lebanon.

Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border escalated on October 8, 2023, following a barrage of rockets launched by Hezbollah toward Israel in solidarity with a surprise attack by Gaza-ruling Palestinian faction Hamas into Israel the day before. Israel then retaliated by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon.