IDF says it hit significant Hezbollah site deep in Lebanon; 50 rockets fired at Golan
3 members of terror group killed in attack in Hermel District; Israel says strike a response to UAV downed in south Lebanon Monday; suspected drone intercepted near Haifa An Israeli airstrike is seen in northeastern Lebanon’s Hermel District, early June 11, 2024. (Social media/X. Used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law) Fighter jets struck what Israel’s military described as a significant Hezbollah compound deep in Lebanon overnight Monday-Tuesday after the terror group downed an Israeli drone. The Israel Defense Forces said airstrikes targeted a site in the Baalbek region belonging to Hezbollah’s Unit 4400, as well as sites in southern Lebanon. According to Israel, Unit 4400 is tasked with “logistical force build-up,” including delivering weaponry to Lebanon and within the country. Hezbollah is backed by Iran, which supplies it with much of its arms. Lebanese media reported that strikes took place in the Hermel District, near Baalbek in northeastern Lebanon, and sources in the terror group told AFP that three Hezbollah members were killed. “Three Hezbollah members were killed by nine Israeli missile strikes that targeted a convoy of tankers and a building” in a village in Hermel District on the border with Syria, the Hezbollah source told AFP, adding that three people were also wounded. On its Telegram channel, the terror group said three members had been killed “on the road to Jerusalem,” its term for operatives slain in Israeli strikes. They were named as Bilal a-Din, of the south Lebanon village of Majdel Selm, Abbas Nasser, from Tayr Felsay, a town in the Tyre District, and Hadi Musaa, from Shebaa.
The attack potentially marked the deepest IDF strikes in Lebanon amid the ongoing war, as Hermel is some 130 kilometers (80 miles) from the Israeli border.
It came amid increasing hostilities between Israel and the terror group as the sides appear to march closer to all-out war. Aside from the strike in Baalbek, the IDF said several more Hezbollah targets, including a military compound and two buildings, were struck in southern Lebanon’s Aitaroun. The IDF said the strikes were a response to Hezbollah downing a military unmanned aerial vehicle over south Lebanon on Monday. Hezbollah, in a statement, said it had intercepted a Hermes 900, a large surveillance and attack UAV used by the Israeli military in Lebanon, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and other fronts. The IDF said the drone was hit by a surface-to-air missile, and the incident was being investigated. It marked the fifth IDF drone to be shot down by Hezbollah over southern Lebanon amid the war. In all, two Hermes 450 drones and three Hermes 900 models have been downed by the terror group in recent months. Along with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, Iran-backed groups in Yemen and Syria have claimed to have launched dozens of drones at Israel during the ongoing war sparked by Hamas’s devastating October 7 terror onslaught, while Lebanon’s Hezbollah has attacked communities and IDF positions in northern Israel on a near-daily basis. Iran itself also carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel in April with hundreds of drones and missiles.