Northern evacuees to Hezbollah: 'Beirut, your time is coming'

Families of evacuees in northern Israel have released a video warning in response to Hezbollah’s Tuesday drone footage of military sites and locations in the Golan Heights, according to a Maariv report Wednesday. 

The video, published by the “Fighting for the North” headquarters, an organization that represents hundreds of evacuee families, addresses Hezbollah directly. “Beirut, your time is coming!” the subtitles, written in Hebrew and Arabic for distribution on Arab media networks, read. “Get ready, you’re running out of time!”

Hezbollah publishes propaganda video

On Tuesday, Hezbollah published a 10-minute propaganda video featuring drone footage of military bases and locations in the Golan Heights, including areas close to the Lebanon border, such as Nahariya, Safed, Mount Dov, and Haifa.

Hezbollah claims the footage, which is estimated to have been taken 4-5 months ago based on the patches of snow spotted in the video, was taken by a drone that entered Israeli airspace before returning to Lebanon undetected, a claim the IDF has not commented on. 

Hezbollah's propaganda video followed an alleged Israeli strike that hit a vehicle on the Damascus-Beirut highway in Syrian territory, killing Yasser Qarnabash, a former bodyguard of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, on Tuesday.

According to Al Arabiya, a Saudi state-owned Arabic news channel, Qarnabash was recently a mid-ranking official involved in transporting weapons and personnel for the terror group. This is the latest video of its kind since Hezbollah published drone footage of Israeli sites in the Haifa area three weeks ago.

FM Katz responds to Hezbollah propaganda video

Since the start of the fighting, Hezbollah has launched hundreds of drones, many armed with explosives, at northern Israel. After the propaganda video was released, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz posted on X, formerly Twitter, “A barking dog doesn’t bite.” He warned Nasrallah to “stop the threats and violence” and to “withdraw” Hezbollah forces from the border area, adding that Nasrallah would “be considered the destroyer of Lebanon” if he did not listen.

In addition to the video, Fighting for the North urged for a more decisive stance against Hezbollah, advocating for a shift from defensive to offensive operations. On Tuesday, the IDF said around 40 projectiles were from Lebanon into the center of the Golan Heights, causing the deaths of two Israeli civilians near the Nafah Junction. After the attack, the group posted a message to the Israeli government on their Facebook page, saying “The red line has been crossed.” 

“Two dead in the North, and no one in the leadership cares,” the Post continued. “If we don’t go to war in the North now, it will be an inexcusable crime against the right-wing government and the leadership. There is an opportunity here that should not be missed for a real decision and not one-off attacks that do not provide an ounce of deterrence.” 

Protests planned for Sunday

The evacuees’ video was published in preparation for a “Day of War on the North,” a series of protests and demonstrations set to take place next Sunday. According to their social media page, the group plans to hold gatherings across Israel, calling for a war in the North that will lead to the return of displaced persons to their homes and a “complete victory over our enemy.” “We will not be the security belt of the State of Israel,” they said.

“Soon you will see us on the streets, you didn’t leave us a home anyway,” the families added in a post regarding the upcoming demonstrations. “We have been evacuated for over nine months, and right now it seems in vain. Thousands of displaced people, dozens of dead, and there is no clear destination for the war. This thing must stop. War, now!”