“Last night, Hezbollah timed a simultaneous attack with Iran, firing rockets and drones at towns and communities across Israel,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told journalists in a briefing.
“The numbers (are) approximately 200 rockets, approximately 20 UAVs (drones), and combine those with ballistic missiles that were being fired from Iran at the same time.”
Shoshani said “this was Hezbollah’s biggest barrage” since the start of the war.
But he added that “we had a good aerial defence and rapid response, resulting in minimal casualties, only two or three direct hits… and a few civilians that were lightly injured”.
The Israeli military has been battling Tehran-backed Hezbollah since the group began firing rockets into Israel on the second day of joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
An AFP team visited a house in an Arab village close to the town of Majd el-Kroum in northern Israel with a large hole blown through the living room ceiling. Standing among the rubble, owner Khalil Khalil told AFP that air raid sirens sounded as his family of nine was sipping coffee after the evening meal to break their Ramadan fast.
A projectile struck their house as they were heading towards the safest room in their home, but fortunately only caused light injuries to several of them.
“We were very lucky, thank God, no one was killed,” Khalil said.
A local civil defence official, who refused to give his name, told AFP that the damage appeared to have been caused by a stray air defence missile fired by the Israeli military.
Israeli military spokesman Shoshani said the army had carried out a wave of strikes against Hezbollah on Wednesday night in southern Lebanon to limit its ability to fire rockets and continued to hit Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Israel’s military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said the military had killed the commander of the Iran-backed Imam Hussein Division and his deputy in a strike on the Lebanese capital’s southern districts.
“Let there be no confusion — we are fighting absolute evil,” Zamir was quoted as saying in a statement from the military.
The Israeli military says that overall Hezbollah has fired more than 1,000 drones, rockets and missiles at Israel over the past 12 days.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday that he had ordered the military to prepare for expanding operations in Lebanon, after the latest barrage.
The military later expanded its evacuation order for residents living in southern Lebanon, saying it was acting “strongly” in the area.
The military also struck a building in central Beirut it said was a Hezbollah facility.
