Hagari: IDF will not permit weapons trafficking to Hezbollah from Syria
IDF Spokesperson warns Hezbollah against Syria presence, reveals extensive operations in southern Lebanon and claims destruction of terror infrastructure in Beirut.
Israel will attack any attempt to bring weapons to Hezbollah from Syria, IDF chief spokesperson R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Thursday.
“We are identifying rockets and other weapons that Hezbollah is launching at Israeli territory that were manufactured in Syria,” R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters. “We will attack every attempt to bring weapons from Syria to Hezbollah. And we will attack all infrastructure we identify in Syria whose purpose is to produce weapons for Hezbollah.”He added that the military has been carrying out airstrikes from Beirut suburb and Hezbollah stronghold Dahiyeh to Damascus.He was speaking shortly after Syria’s state news agency reported what it said was an Israeli airstrike that hit a bridge in Syria in the area of Qusayr near the border with northern Lebanon.
The IDF said earlier that it struck military sites and command centers belonging to Palestinian Islamic Jihad – located in Syria. “Alongside Hamas… PIJ directed by its leaders outside the Gaza Strip, participated in the murderous attack on October 7th,” said the military, adding that PIJ has been actively assisting Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Syrian state media reported that 15 people were killed in Israeli strikes on residential buildings in Damascus. A Syrian military source said that the buildings targeted were located in the suburbs of Mazzeh and Qudsaya, both in the west of the Syrian capital, according to SANA.“The terrorist organization is an additional Iranian proxy acting under the direct instruction of Iran. Moreover, the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization operates in Syria under the cover of the Syrian Regime,” said the IDF.
Hezbollah's Beirut supply
Hundreds of Hezbollah terror compounds have been destroyed since the beginning of Operation Northern Arrows in September, Hagari said, and many weapons have been seized and destroyed.
“We have destroyed most of Hezbollah's production sites and weapons warehouses in Beirut,” he announced.
Early Thursday morning, the IDF confirmed that it downed a drone under the Syrian skies that was launched from the east. It was en route to Israel and was shot down before it crossed into Israeli territory. It was also the second such drone to be downed by Israeli defense systems.
Fallen soldiers
The IDF announced on Thursday that Lt. Ivri Dickshtein, 21, from Eli, was killed in southern Lebanon.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said on Thursday that two or three unknown people fired approximately 30 shots in the direction of peacekeepers, who fired back and moved to safety. No one was hurt and an investigation was launched, UNIFIL added in a statement.Throughout Thursday morning, Israel Air Force jets struck a series of sites in the Dahiyeh south of Beirut, including weapons storage facilities, command centers, and other terrorist infrastructure. There were more strikes on Hezbollah sites in the Dahiyeh later in the evening.On Tuesday and Wednesday, the strikes were quite wide, spanning over 30 targets. The military noted that most of these were in civilian areas, highlighting Hezbollah’s “cynical use of civilians as human shields.”The head of Lebanon’s largest Christian party said Iran-backed Hezbollah should relinquish its weapons as quickly as possible to end its year-long war with Israel and spare Lebanon further death and destruction.Samir Geagea, Hezbollah’s fiercest political opponent in Lebanon, spoke to Reuters on Thursday at his mountain home and party headquarters in Maarab, north of Beirut, as Israel carried out waves of strikes on areas where Hezbollah holds sway.“With the destruction of all of Hezbollah’s infrastructure and its warehouses, a big part of Lebanon is also being destroyed. That’s the price,” he said.Hezbollah’s critics in Lebanon, such as Geagea, say it unilaterally pulled Lebanon into a new war after it began firing at Israel in solidarity with Hamas following the October 7 massacre. Hezbollah says it is defending Lebanon from Israeli aggression and has vowed to keep fighting, saying it will not lay down its arms or allow Israel to achieve political gains on the back of the war.
Rockets rained down on Thursday in the North
Over the past week, the IAF destroyed more than 140 rocket launchers belonging to Hezbollah located in southern Lebanon. One of the launchers was responsible for rockets fired at the Western Galilee on Wednesday, and to central Israel on both Wednesday and Tuesday.The military said that on Tuesday, fighter jets struck a senior operations commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Forces. It added that 200 Hezbollah operatives were killed in the last week.In Gaza, the military said that troops continued to fight in Beit Lahiya and Jabalya, locating large caches of weapons and killing dozens of Hamas fighters, the military said. In Rafah, IAF jets struck a weapons storage facility.
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