Israeli security forces at the site where a missile fired from Lebanon hit a road near the northern Israeli city of Katzrin, Oct. 4, 2024. (Photo: Michael Giladi/Flash90)
Hezbollah continued shooting hundreds of rockets at northern Israel over the long weekend of the Jewish New Year holiday, while the IDF announced progress in its ground operations and kept pounding the terror group with airstrikes across the country.
“We must continue exerting pressure on Hezbollah and creating additional and lasting damage to the enemy – without relief, and without allowing a respite for the organization,” said IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi after a situation assessment on Saturday evening.
Over the long weekend that began on Wednesday evening with the Jewish New Year holiday, Rosh Hashanah, Hezbollah fired an estimated 800 rockets and mortar grenades at northern Israel, according to Army Radio. No serious injuries or significant damage was caused by the rocket attacks, except for several buildings that were directly hit.
🚨Sirens sounding in Haifa and northern Israel🚨 pic.twitter.com/vLhyMcNkqH
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 5, 2024
On Saturday, around 110 rockets were fired in several large barrages, especially targeting the area around the town of Karmiel in central Galilee. Other volleys were aimed at Haifa, areas near Yokneam, the Jezreel Valley, the Golan Heights, and Safed.
However, most of the launches targeted IDF positions and staging grounds along the border that are used for the ongoing ground incursion.
Following two heavy barrages near the area surrounding Karmiel, impacts were reported in the nearby town of Deir al-Asad, populated by Israeli Arabs. Forty-nine people were hospitalized following the attack, treated mainly for light injuries and anxiety.
הפגיעה הישירה בגג הדירה – וההרס בכל האזור | כך נראית הזירה בכרמיאל@sharonknoblich pic.twitter.com/fs3dLJQOSn
— החדשות – N12 (@N12News) October 5, 2024
At least one house in Karmiel suffered a direct hit, and an ambulance vehicle was hit by shrapnel.
A resident told Ynet News, “There was an alarm, and myself, my wife and the two daughters entered the emergency room. There was a very loud boom and we knew immediately that there had been a fall near us, although we did not know if it was a missile or a drone. We have ‘bunker discipline,’ and usually, when there is a boom, we turn it into something funny for the girls. This time it was an extreme boom, but we kept our cool.”
On the ground in southern Lebanon, the IDF’s 98th and 36th Divisions continued to operate, while the army announced a ninth soldier was killed during the heavy fighting with Hezbollah forces.
On Friday, the IDF’s head of the Northern Command, Maj.-Gen. Uri Gordin joined the troops in Lebanon for a situation assessment. “Where we are standing, we can look towards the settlements on the border,” Gordin said, “our ground operation here is a significant step towards the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes, towards a better year than the previous one.”
Meanwhile, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) continued its intense campaign of precise airstrikes across Lebanon, hunting senior operatives of Hezbollah and other terror groups, and degrading their infrastructure and weapons systems.
On Saturday, local media reported that Israel is increasingly convinced that Thursday’s targeted strike on the designated successor of Hassan Nasrallah as Hezbollah’s leader, Hashem Safi al-Din, was indeed successful.
Hezbollah officials told the French AFP that “Contact with Sayyed Safi al-Din has been lost since the violent strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs … We don’t know if he was at the targeted site, or who may have been there with him.”
לפני זמן קצר, מטוסי קרב של חיל האוויר תקפו, בהכוונה מודיעינית של אמ”ן, באופן ממוקד, מפקדות ותשתיות טרור נוספות של מטה המודיעין של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב ביירות>> pic.twitter.com/CSqc9JoeFO
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) October 5, 2024
On Friday, the Lebanese Health Ministry claimed that Israeli attacks had killed 25 people, bringing the overall death toll to 2,036, however, the ministry’s data does not distinguish between civilians and terrorists.
Two notable airstrikes on Saturday eliminated senior Hamas commanders in Lebanon, the IDF said. One attack killed Said Atallah Ali, a top commander, in the northernmost strike of the war so far, in the Beddawi camp near the town of Tripoli.
Hamas says one of its commanders in Lebanon was killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike in the Beddawi camp for Palestinian refugees near the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.
Three members of Saeed Atallah Ali’s family were also killed in the strike, according to Lebanese… pic.twitter.com/kmDxLcy5bO
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) October 5, 2024
Atallah Ali “led attacks against Israeli targets and worked to recruit operatives to the ranks of the terror group Hamas in Lebanon,” the IDF stated. Another strike killed Muhammad Hussein Ali Al-Mahmoud, “who served as the operative arm in Lebanon of the terror group Hamas, and directed terror operations in Judea and Samaria.”
Al-Mahmoud also launched terror attacks in Israel and globally, and took part in Hamas’ weapons supply efforts.
“Their elimination constitutes harm to the ability of the terror organization Hamas in Lebanon to promote and carry out terrorist acts against the State of Israel and its citizens,” the IDF stated.
Israeli airstrikes on Friday targeted munitions production sites and Hezbollah’s intelligence infrastructure in Beirut.
⭕️ The IAF struck Hezbollah terrorists who were operating within a command center—used to plan and execute terrorist attacks against Israel—that was located inside a mosque adjacent to the Salah Ghandour Hospital in southern Lebanon.
Before the strike, notices were sent to… pic.twitter.com/cfRM2tCjg2
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 5, 2024
On Saturday, IAF strikes targeted and struck a Hezbollah headquarters hidden in a mosque near the Salah Ghandur Hospital in southern Lebanon.
“The headquarters was used by the terrorists to plan and carry out terrorist operations against the IDF forces and the State of Israel,” the military stated.
“Prior to the attack, notices were sent to the residents and talks were held with key officials in the villages where the hospitals are located and the IDF identified Hezbollah’s use of them, which is prohibited under the laws of war, demanding that all acts of terrorism carried out in the hospital be stopped immediately.”
Another wave of strikes also struck Hezbollah’s intelligence branch and weapons production sites in Beirut’s Dahiyeh district.
“The terror organization Hezbollah places its weapons under residential buildings in the heart of the city of Beirut and endangers the population in the area,” the IDF reiterated following the strikes.
