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Hezbollah Resumes Steady Rocket, Artillery Fire against Israel

Israeli soldiers stand near an army self-propelled artillery vehicle on the outskirts of Kiryat Shmona near Israel's border with Lebanon on July 6, 2023. © Jalaa Marey, AFP
Israeli soldiers stand near an army self-propelled artillery vehicle on the outskirts of Kiryat Shmona near Israel's border with Lebanon on July 6, 2023. © Jalaa Marey, AFP
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Hezbollah Resumes Steady Rocket, Artillery Fire against Israel

Israeli soldiers stand near an army self-propelled artillery vehicle on the outskirts of Kiryat Shmona near Israel's border with Lebanon on July 6, 2023. © Jalaa Marey, AFP
Israeli soldiers stand near an army self-propelled artillery vehicle on the outskirts of Kiryat Shmona near Israel's border with Lebanon on July 6, 2023. © Jalaa Marey, AFP

Hezbollah forces on Friday resumed rocket and artillery attacks against Israel, ending the lull along the border following Israel's killing of the Lebanese group's military commander in Beirut.

Hezbollah said it had fired a surface-to-air missile at an Israeli warplane flying in Lebanese airspace overnight and forced it to turn back. Its forces also carried out two artillery attacks and two rocket strikes at military positions in northern Israel, it said, Reuters reported.

The Israeli military said in a statement it had successfully intercepted an aerial target coming from Lebanon into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire hit several villages in southern Lebanon on Friday, according to Lebanese state media, a day after an Israeli strike killed at least five Syrian migrant workers in southern Lebanon, according to medics.

The Israeli military also said it had hit two Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in an address on Thursday that he had ordered calm along the border following the Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Tuesday that killed military commander Fuad Shukr out of respect for the victims and to consider what the next steps should be.

The strike on the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiyeh in Beirut's southern suburbs also killed an Iranian military adviser and five civilians.

Nasrallah said Hezbollah would retaliate but it would need to study what their response would be, and would otherwise resume its usual military operations against Israel.

Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been trading fire for nearly 10 months in parallel with the Gaza war, with exchanges mostly limited to the border area.

But strikes since last week have threatened to tip the conflict into a full-scale regional war.

Israel and the United States have accused Hezbollah of killing 12 youths in a July 27 rocket attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, a claim Hezbollah has denied.

The United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, told Reuters on Friday it had not investigated the incident as the Israeli-occupied Golan is outside its mandated area of operations.

 

 

 

 

 

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Arab World

Shukr’s Assassination Closes Chapter on Hezbollah’s First-Generation Leaders

An archived photo of key Hezbollah leaders who were assassinated: Imad Mughniyeh (right), Fouad Shukr(center), and Mustafa Badreddine (left)
An archived photo of key Hezbollah leaders who were assassinated: Imad Mughniyeh (right), Fouad Shukr(center), and Mustafa Badreddine (left)
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Shukr’s Assassination Closes Chapter on Hezbollah’s First-Generation Leaders

An archived photo of key Hezbollah leaders who were assassinated: Imad Mughniyeh (right), Fouad Shukr(center), and Mustafa Badreddine (left)
An archived photo of key Hezbollah leaders who were assassinated: Imad Mughniyeh (right), Fouad Shukr(center), and Mustafa Badreddine (left)

The assassination of prominent Hezbollah military leader Fouad Shukr closes the chapter on the party’s founding generation from the early 1980s. This group, which included Shukr, all met their end either in battle or through assassinations.
Shukr was linked to two key groups: the “Group of 82” and a series of military commanders who led Hezbollah’s armed wing.
The “Group of 82” was a band of ten men who first gathered in a mosque in the Ouzai area of southern Beirut during the Israeli invasion of 1982. They were deeply religious and inspired by Iran’s Islamic revolution.
Their mission was to resist the Israeli occupation, starting in Beirut and the battle for Khalde, and then continuing their fight in southern Lebanon.
Shukr was the last surviving member of this group and the first leader of Hezbollah’s military wing.
The founding group of Hezbollah, known as the “first generation,” included: Hassan Shukr, Asi Zeineddine, Samir Mattout, Mahmoud Youssef, Mohamed Hassouna, Fouad Shukr, Asaad Barro, Mohamed Naim Youssef, Jaafar al-Moula, and Ahmed Shamss.
Most of these members hailed from the Bekaa region in eastern Lebanon and lived in the impoverished and marginalized Ouzai area.
Notably, all of them were killed during the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon in the 1980s, with the exception of Fouad Shukr, who was assassinated by Israel on Tuesday.
The Ouzai group merged with other factions in Beirut’s southern suburbs, leading to the emergence of key Hezbollah military leaders like Imad Mughniyeh and Mustafa Badreddine.
Initially, Hezbollah operated as a loose network of cells coordinating with other groups fighting Israel.
During the Israeli invasion, these cells joined forces in the south. By 1985, they had formed a structured military organization with training from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Fouad Shukr was one of the first leaders of this organized military unit.
Since Shukr’s assassination, Hezbollah has not announced any military move against Israeli positions. Experts believe this development indicates a temporary “suspension” of Hezbollah’s military activities over vacuum at the military leadership.
Another indicator, experts believe, could be attributed to the party's ongoing preparations to respond to the assassination of Shukr.
Although Israel carried out airstrikes recently that hit Lebanon’s southern town of Kfar Kila, and its drones hovered over Lebanese towns, Hezbollah has not responded to any. The group did not claim responsibility for any military move against Israel from Tuesday, 6:00 p.m., through Thursday.
Analysts believe that military operations usually cease after the death of the battle leader. But others also argue that “assigning a successor to the battle does not take a lot of time mainly during times of war”.