On Tuesday, Lebanon's Hezbollah initiated a sequence of drone and rocket assaults targeting northern Israel, yet cautioned that the anticipated reprisal for Israel's recent execution of a high-ranking commander is still forthcoming. Hezbollah disclosed the deployment of a group of attack drones against two military installations close to Acre in northern Israel, and additionally struck an Israeli military vehicle elsewhere. The Israeli military confirmed the detection of several hostile drones originating from Lebanon, with one being intercepted. It reported several civilian casualties to the south of Nahariya, a coastal city. Reuters TV captured footage of a strike site near a bus stop on a main road outside the city. The Israeli military issued a statement noting that sirens were activated around Acre, though it was later deemed a false alarm. Subsequently, the Israeli air force retaliated by targeting two Hezbollah facilities in southern Lebanon.
Concerns are escalating that the Middle East may plunge into a full-scale conflict following Hezbollah's and Iran's declarations of vengeance for the assassinations of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr and the leader of Palestinian militant group Hamas in Tehran last week. A Hezbollah insider informed Reuters that "the response to the assassination of commander Fuad Shukr is yet to materialize." Earlier on Tuesday, an attack on a residence in the Lebanese town of Mayfadoun, approximately 30 km north of the border, resulted in four fatalities, according to medics and a security source. Two additional security sources identified the deceased as Hezbollah fighters, although the group had not issued its customary death announcements. Over the past ten months, Hezbollah and the Israeli military have intermittently exchanged fire, predominantly confined to the border region, paralleling the conflict in Gaza. Last week, Israel assassinated Shukr, Hezbollah's top military strategist, in an attack on the group's base in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Hezbollah's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, pledged retribution but indicated that the response would be "meticulously planned."
