Hezbollah Responds to Israeli Air Raids with Major Drone and Missile Strikes

On April 28 the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah launched major strikes on Israeli military installations, responding to Israeli air raids the previous day targeting the villages of Al Quzah, Markaba, and Sarbin in Southern Lebanon. Israeli warplanes had the previous day also struck Kfarkela and Kfarchouba. “In response to the Israeli enemy’s attacks on the steadfast southern villages and civilian homes,” Hezbollah units targeted the “Meron settlement and the surrounding settlements with dozens of Katyusha rockets,” the group announced in an official statement. It also that day “launched a complex attack using explosive drones and guided missiles on the headquarters of the Al Manara military command and a gathering of forces from the 51st Battalion of the Golani Brigade.” 

The Mount Meron airbase targeted has been described by Hezbollah as “the sole centre for administration, monitoring, and air control in the north of the usurping entity [Israel],” to which Israeli forces have“no viable alternative.” The militia previously launched a successful strike on the facility on December 6 using rocket artillery, with 62 rockets reported to have been fired. The base represents the highest summit held by Israeli forces other than in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, and hosts a radar station and surveillance apparatus which are used both to intercept communications across Lebanon and Syria and to direct Israeli military aircraft for operations against both countries. Strikes on Mount Meron have represented only a small part of broader hostilities between Hezbollah an Israeli forces which have been ongoing for close to seven months.

On April 14, in the aftermath of an Iranian drone strike on Israel, Israeli airstrikes targeted Hezbollah positions across Lebanon, with Hezbollah responding by shelling and launching drone strikes against Israeli territory. The militia group on April 21 used a surface to air missile to destroy an Israeli Hermes 450 drone over Southern Lebanon, following prior successes on April 6 shooting down another Israeli Hermes 450 and a Hermes 900. Hezbollah has demonstrated a number of new capabilities during engagements with Israeli forces, using drones and artillery to suppress Israeli Iron Dome air defence batteries, and using sophisticated ‘fire and forget’ anti tank weapons to strike Israeli armour. The militia remains is the only party to have defeated Israeli in a major war in the country’s 76 year history, achieving this during a 34 day war from July-August 2006. It subsequently from 2013 played a central role supporting Syrian government counterinsurgency efforts against militants supported by Israel and many of its strategic partners within NATO. Hostilities have stretched Israeli forces between their ongoing invasion of the Gaza Strip to the south and the Israeli-Lebanese border to the north, as well as hostilities with Iran which flared from April 1 after an Israeli air strike on a diplomatic building killed senior Iranian military officials in Syria.