Hezbollah Attacks Tel Aviv With Ballistic Missile As Israel Preps For War

ANALYSIS – A first for the terrorists. Though Israel didn’t need a reason to prepare a major ground operation against Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, they may have given it a good one a day ago.

Hezbollah has fired a Qader-1 ballistic missile targeting Israel’s Mossad spy agency headquarters near Tel Aviv – the first such rocket to target the country’s biggest city.

The terror group claims Mossad was behind the devastating attack on its commanders via a sophisticated operation that detonated thousands of pagers and walkie talkies used by the group.

The Israel Defense Forces said it intercepted the missile with its aerial defense system known as David’s Sling, as parts of Tel Aviv woke up to sirens.

In response, in addition to shooting down the missile, Israel claimed to have struck the launcher from which Hezbollah’s ballistic missile was fired, in the Nafakhiyeh area in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah said the Qader-1 ballistic missile, which was launched after Israel’s intense bombardment of Lebanon killed nearly 600 people this week, was targeting the Mossad headquarters in the outskirts of Tel Aviv.”

Hezbollah released a video boasting about the capabilities of the “Qader-1”, which the group says has a range of 119 miles. The group describes the weapons as heavy and “long-range” missiles “that could even go further away than Tel Aviv.”

However, Sidharth Kaushal, RUSI’s Sea Power Research Fellow, said, according to The Washington Post, that he believes that in this context “‘long range’ means long relative to the rockets [Hezbollah] used thus far – probably a short-range ballistic missile like Fateh or Scud.”

The IDF also confirmed that “approximately 40 projectiles” crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory Wednesday, as sirens sounded in the Upper Galilee area.

Hezbollah media also said it launched “dozens of rockets” toward the southern Israeli town of Hatzor and targeted a military base and other assets.

But these games may be ending soon, as Israel is preparing to go hard on the ground to destroy the terrorists’ control of southern Lebanon.

Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), told soldiers to prepare for a possible incursion into Lebanon, where they would “go in, destroy the enemy there and decisively destroy” Hezbollah’s infrastructure.

Israel has called up two reservist brigades, it announced Wednesday, as it continued to strike targets in southern Lebanon and the eastern area of Bekaa on Wednesday it said were linked to Hezbollah.

The IDF said its warplanes hit more than 280 targets.

“We are preparing the process of a maneuver,” Halevi, told troops at an exercise along the northern border, “which means your military boots … will enter enemy territory.”

“You will go in, destroy the enemy there and decisively destroy their infrastructure,” he said, adding that the operation would allow Israeli residents, displaced for months by Hezbollah rocket fire, to “safely” return home.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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