Hezbollah launched more than fifty rockets on Sunday morning, targeting northern Israel. The rockets triggered sirens in communities near the northern border, including in Kiryat Shmona. The Iranian-backed terrorist group claimed the attacks were in response to what it said was a “massacre” in Froun in southern Lebanon, a village it said Israel had struck.
The attacks followed reports from Lebanon of casualties in Froun. “The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said three emergency workers were killed in the attack as they tried to contain a fire in the town of Froun, Nabatieh district. It said the attack was the second time an ambulance team had been targeted within 12 hours and was a violation of international law,” CNN reported.
According to a Hezbollah statement, which was reported at Al-Ain media, the group used Falaq rockets in the attacks. These have become more common in Hezbollah’s arsenal during the war. It was a Falaq rocket that killed twelve kids and teens in Majdal Shams in July. This time, Hezbollah targeted Kiryat Shmona with the rockets, which have a heavy warhead but relatively short range. There are two types of Falaq rockets: the Falaq-1 and Falaq-2. The Falaq-1 is based on an Iranian design with a warhead of around 50kg, while the second version has a much larger warhead. They have a range of around 10km.
Hezbollah claimed that an IDF attack in the area of Froun and Ghandouriyeh in southern Lebanon had led to casualties among local civil defense personnel.
“The Hezbollah attacks were launched against Israeli bases in response to the killing of three Lebanese relief workers,” Iranian state media reported. “Hezbollah bombarded Kiryat Shmona with an intense barrage of rockets. It also bombarded the settlement of Shamir with barrages of Katyusha rockets at dawn,” the report at Al-Ain said.
Shamir is a community in the Hula Valley; Hezbollah only recently added to a “list” of sites it has been attacking in northern Israel. Unlike Kiryat Shmona, which was evacuated in October 2023, Shamir has not been evacuated.
Hezbollah also targeted Misgav Am, Manara, and Kfar Giladi in its attacks.
A new norm
In recent days, Hezbollah has escalated attacks. This follows the major escalation in August when it fired hundreds of rockets at Israel. That attack was also a Hezbollah “retaliation” for the killing of a commander in Beirut. The killing of the commander, Fuad Shukr, was itself an IDF retaliation for the attack on Majdal Shams. In this war with Hezbollah, the group always pretends to be retaliating when it is the one escalating.
Hezbollah’s attacks began early in the morning and continued through 5:30 a.m. Overall, around fifty rockets were fired.
The attack illustrates that Hezbollah is trying to up the threshold of its attacks and create a new kind of “norm” in the north, such that fifty or 100 rockets fired in a day may become a norm.
Hezbollah has reduced the number of drones it has been using in recent weeks. This is a shift in trend after it used a large number of drones from April through June. The group has also continued to shift its tactics, focusing on new areas that it has been bombarding with rockets. These are unguided rockets intended to terrorize civilians, even though Hezbollah often claims it is targeting military targets.
The goal of Hezbollah is to try to increase the “pain” that Israel is feeling from these attacks without leading to a broader war. Hezbollah also knows that even if there is a ceasefire in Gaza, it will be hard for Israel to return the north to the pre-October 7 peace that largely prevailed since 2006.