Israel Strikes Hezbollah in Major Waves of Airstrikes Throughout Lebanon
(Worthy News) – Israel conducted two major waves of airstrikes on Monday, targeting over 300 Hezbollah sites. This came just a day after Israeli forces eliminated a senior Hezbollah leader and an entire class of top commanders from the terrorist organization’s elite Radwan force in Beirut.
On Monday morning, the Israel Defense Forces announced that they had carried out “widespread” airstrikes targeting Hezbollah positions in Lebanon. They also issued a warning to civilians, urging them to quickly evacuate homes used by the Iran-backed terrorist organization for weapons storage.
Lebanon’s health ministry reported that at least 100 people were killed and over 400 injured, but the released details did not specify whether the casualties included members of the terror group or civilians.
Over the weekend, Hezbollah announced that the death toll among its fighters from Friday’s airstrike had risen to 16, including top military commander Ibrahim Aqil and several senior commanders of the elite Radwan force.
The strike on the leadership followed two large-scale attacks on the group’s rank and file, during which thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies, rigged with explosives, detonated almost simultaneously across the country.
According to Hezbollah’s own death announcements, the past week’s attacks have accounted for around 10% of the 500 Hezbollah fighters killed since the terrorist organization began launching rockets across the border, following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on Israel, which ignited the war in the Gaza Strip.
The past week has exacted a heavy toll. Lebanon’s health minister announced on Saturday that doctors had performed over 2,000 surgeries on individuals injured in the attacks, many of them due to explosions from pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members.
Over the past week, these airstrikes on Monday marked the fifth and sixth rounds of large-scale attacks on Hezbollah since last Thursday, particularly targeting southern Lebanon, with some strikes reaching farther from the border than in previous instances.
Before the strikes, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reportedly sent text messages to southern Lebanese citizens, urging them to avoid Hezbollah structures. “If you are in a building containing Hezbollah weapons, move away immediately until further notice,” the message to civilians read, according to Israeli media.
DF Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee earlier warned that strikes on houses in Lebanon where Hezbollah was storing weapons were “imminent.”
In an Arabic message to Lebanese civilians, Adraee stated, “Hezbollah is lying to you and sacrificing you. Its missiles and drones are more valuable and important to it than you are.”
Additionally, Israel took control of local radio broadcasts shortly before 8 a.m., instructing residents in southern Lebanon to evacuate areas where Hezbollah weapons were concentrated.