JERUSALEM - The Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorist movement on Wednesday pummeled Israel’s northern border, including Tiberias, where Jesus performed miracles, with rockets after the Jewish state eliminated a senior Hezbollah commander responsible for military operations.
According to a statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the "IDF struck a Hezbollah command and control center used to direct attacks from southeastern Lebanon and eliminated its commander, Sami Taleb Abdullah."
Hezbollah’s aerial warfare apparatus sent a swarm of more than 200 rockets into northern Israeli communities. The IDF did not report any injuries.
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The IDF said on Tuesday "A Hezbollah command and control center in the area of Jouaiyya in Southern Lebanon, which was used to direct terror attacks against Israeli territory from southeastern Lebanon in recent months, was struck by the IAF. As part of the strike, Sami Taleb Abdullah, the commander of the Nasr Unit in the Hezbollah terrorist organization, was eliminated. Sami Taleb Abdullah was one of Hezbollah's most senior commanders in southern Lebanon."
The IDF added, "For many years, the terrorist planned, advanced, and carried out a large number of terror attacks against Israeli civilians. Three additional Hezbollah terrorist operatives were also eliminated in the strike."
Up to 80,000 Israelis have fled the northern border areas since Oct. 7, as the Iran-backed Hezbollah has intensified its mini-war against Israel.
"The front has certainly been heating up, and Hezbollah chief Nasrallah has dismissed any chance of stopping until Israel agrees to a Gaza ceasefire, thus trying to establish his militia as part of the Israel-Palestinian scene, something that Israel doesn’t want to see happen," Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at FDD told Fox News Digital.
"Israel wants to get done with the northern front, independent of Gaza, with a deadline being September (start of school year) for Israeli refugees to be able to return home. This will require a major escalation, which is currently underway. A full scale war seems to be close, perhaps as soon as the end of this month," warned the Lebanon expert.
Hezbollah first initiated its aerial attacks on Israel shortly after the Gaza Strip-based terrorist organization Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7. Hamas massacred nearly 1,200 people, including more than 30 Americans.
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Last week, after Hezbollah rockets into Israel caused a massive outbreak of fires in the north, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Jewish state is "prepared for very intense action in the north" in response to Hezbollah's continued rocket and drone attacks into northern Israel.
Speaking from an Israeli military base in Kiryat Shmona, Netanyahu declared, "We said, at the start of the war, that we would restore security in both the south and the north – and this is what we are doing. Today I am on the northern border with our heroic fighters and commanders, as well as with our firefighters. Yesterday the ground burned here, and I am pleased that you have extinguished it, but ground also burned in Lebanon."
"Israel, from the very beginning, said first Gaza and then deal with the north," Brig. Gen. (Res) Amir Avivi, a former deputy commander of the Israel Defense Forces' Gaza Division, told Fox News Digital last week.
"In the coming weeks, the main missions in Rafah will end. Most of the troops will be sent north and there will be a threat to Hezbollah, calling them to retreat, according to U.N. resolution 1701, and if they don’t retreat, and if there is no American leadership threatening Hezbollah or Iran, and no international pressure, Israel will have to attack and do a ground incursion into south Lebanon while destroying most of Hezbollah’s long-range capabilities," he said.
According to Avivi, the United Nations Security Council has failed to enforce resolution 1701, whose purpose was to disarm Hezbollah following the end of its 2006 against Israel.
In reference to the Hezbollah rockets hitting areas that have major significance to Christians, Rev. Johnnie Moore, the president of The Congress of Christian Leaders, on Wednesday wrote on X, "Hezbollah is firing hundreds of rockets into the Christian heartland of N. Israel … in the idyllic hills around Galilee….where Jesus lived, where most of his ministry took place, near to where the Sermon on the Mount was preached…where millions of Christians visit today."
The Israeli news outlet Ynet reported on Wednesday that the pro-Hezbollah Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar wrote about the elimination of Taleb Abdullah. "The enemy dealt a severe blow to Hezbollah in a security-military operation targeting one of the prominent commanders in the current confrontation, accompanied by additional fighters during an Israeli drone strike on a house in the village of Jouaiyya."
The IDF announced on Monday that more than 19,000 unguided rockets have been launched at the Jewish state since Oct. 7. Most of the rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip, but a sizable number of projectiles have been launched by Hezbollah. The U.S.and many other Western and non-Western countries have designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization.
