Israel Air Force can hit enemies' underbelly, Netanyahu says amid northern tensions

Israel’s air force is prepared for both defensive and offensive maneuvers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday after the IDF said it had bombed Hezbollah weapons storage facilities in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley overnight.

“The Air Force is our iron fist that knows how to hit the soft underbelly of our enemies,” Netanyahu said as he visited the Ramat David Air Force base in the North.

“They prove it time and time again, and if we have to – we will prove it again and again,” he said.

He spoke as strikes and counterstrikes between Hezbollah and Israel in the North heated up, including aerial attacks by the Iranian proxy group in the area of Katzrin and Kibbutz Amiad. It’s estimated that some 50 projectiles were launched at Katzrin, damaging homes and injuring one person. Photos showed smoke and fire rising from streets with residential homes.

Israel also said on Wednesday it had killed Khalil Hussein Khalil al-Maqdah in the Sidon area, southern Lebanon, who worked with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah.

The IAF airstrike in the Bekaa Valley killed at least two people and injured 19, according to security sources, but it was not immediately clear if those killed were civilians or fighters.

Netanyahu said “I am here, at the air force base, to closely monitor our preparations against threats both near and far. We are prepared for any scenario – both a defensive and offensive one.”

Foreign Minister Israel Katz warned that Hezbollah was “leading Lebanon into darkness – both literally and figuratively.”

“While the people of Lebanon suffer through endless blackouts and a crumbling infrastructure, Hezbollah diverts their resources to ignite the region with violence and terror,” he wrote in a post on X.

“The Lebanese people deserve a future of peace, dignity, and a Lebanon free from the grip of terror,” Katz wrote. He attached a video in English with a similar message aimed at the people of Lebanon.

The IDF and Hezbollah have engaged in a low-intensity war that has run concurrently with the Gaza War that began on October 7.

Hopes that a hostage deal would end low-scale war in northern Israel

The United States has hoped that a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal would put an end to the IDF-Hezbollah low-intensity war, which has made it impossible for thousands of civilians on both sides of the border to live in their homes for over 10 months.

The stakes have been raised since Israel killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr at the end of last month. Hezbollah has threatened reprisal attacks, which have yet to be launched as it waits to see if a ceasefire deal would be reached.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister for the Negev and the Galilee Yitzhak Wasserlauf, both of the Otzma Yehudit Party visited Katzrin and called on the IDF to launch a large-scale attack on Hezbollah, urging it not to miss this opportunity.

“The fate of Katzrin is the fate of Tel Aviv,” he said, as he called on Netanyahu to give him a spot on a condensed war cabinet.

Reuters contributed to this report.