BEIRUT: Hezbollah launched a major rocket and drone attack on Israel on Thursday and threatened to target new sites in retaliation for the killing of one its top commanders.

The party fired advanced Burkan and Falaq rocket attacks at various sites in northern Israel, including five army barracks, a shopping mall in Acre and the Golan Heights.

The Israeli army said one soldier died in the attack and several others were seriously injured. Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth reported that 25 firefighting teams had been deployed to tackle 10 fires in Golan and the Upper Galilee sparked by the incident.

The head of Hezbollah’s Aziz Unit, Mohammed Nimah Nasser, and his companion were killed during an attack by an Israeli aircraft on the Tyre road. Nasser is the most prominent field commander to have been killed since the start of the conflict.

Last month, the commander of Hezbollah’s Al-Nasr Unit, Talib Sami Abdullah, was killed in a bombing raid on a house in Juwaya.

A source close to Hezbollah said Nasser had “a great symbolism in the party.” He first engaged in resisting the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon in 1984 and had been involved in the current conflict since Oct. 8.

“When Israel established the border strip, he was involved in all incursions until the liberation of the south in 2000. He played his role in the July 2006 war and the wars in Syria and Iraq between 2011 and 2016,” the source said.

Hashem Safieddine, head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council, said the southern front “will remain active and strong” and that the Israeli army was about to face a “resounding defeat amid the steadfastness of the people of Gaza and the resistance that will remain in Gaza.”

According to security sources, Hezbollah launched 25 drones from Lebanese territory toward northern Israel Upper Galilee and Golan “after it had emptied the Iron Dome of interceptor missiles.”

Israeli media said there had been reports of several drone explosions and that sirens had sounded in Kidmat Zvi in southern Golan. Other reports said a soldier had been killed and that others had been injured.

A Hezbollah statement said it “targeted a newly established position of Israeli soldiers in the Kfar Blum settlement with a salvo of Katyusha rockets.”

It said it also fired more than 200 rockets of various types at the 91st Brigade headquarters at Ayelet Barracks, the command headquarters of the 7th Armored Brigade at Katsavia Barracks, the command headquarters of the Armored Battalion of the 7th Brigade at Gamla Barracks, the command headquarters of Brigade 210 (Golan Brigade) at Nafah Base and the artillery battalion headquarters of Brigade 210 at Yarden Barracks.

Hezbollah said it targeted the Al-Baghdadi site with a Burkan rocket.

On Wednesday night, in response to Nasser’s death, Hezbollah said it shelled “the Zarit Barracks with Burkan rockets, headquarters of the land force battalion in the Kila’a barracks with dozens of Katyusha rockets and the command headquarters of brigade 769 in Kiryat Shmona barracks with Falaq rockets.”

The group also targeted the Birkat Risha and Al-Raheb sites.

A military source told Israeli Army Radio that the scale of the attack was “fully consistent with Hezbollah’s announcement.”

The Israeli army said it “observed the firing of about 160 shells and 15 suicide drones from Lebanon, and air defenses intercepted most of them.”

Israeli media said that “train traffic from Haifa to Nahariya was halted due to the security situation.”

The military escalation in southern Lebanon coincided with the arrival of a delegation from the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Lebanese Parliament to the UNIFIL headquarters in Naqoura amid the sound of sirens.

The delegation was met by UNIFIL mission commander, Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lazaro, and senior officials. The meeting included a review of the UNIFIL’s role and missions ahead of next month’s renewal of the mandate of the international forces for another year.

Hezbollah’s attack was met with a violent Israeli response, which echoed in Beirut as warplanes broke the sound barrier over the south, reaching Beirut and its southern suburbs and Metn in Mount Lebanon.

Hezbollah said party member Hady Ahmed Shreym, aged 28, was killed in an Israeli drone attack on a house in Houla.

Israeli warplanes also launched strikes on Aitaroun, Aita Al-Shaab and Ramia, while Israeli artillery targeted the towns of Khiam, Udaysah, Kafr Kila, Rab El-Thalathine, Qantara, Deir Seryan, Qabrikha and Naqoura.

Several civilians were injured in the shelling of Kfar Shouba, including Ahmad Ghanem, a member of the municipal council, and Ali Al-Hajj who was inside the same house.

CAIRO: More than 136,000 people have fled Sudan’s southeastern Sennar state since the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces began a series of attacks on towns, the United Nations said on Thursday, the latest wave of displacement caused by Sudan’s almost 15-month long war.
They join nearly 10 million people driven from their homes since war broke out between the RSF and the regular army. The war has sparked accusations of “ethnic cleansing” and warnings of famine, mainly in RSF-controlled areas across the country.
The RSF on June 24 began a campaign to seize the city of Sennar, a trading hub, but quickly turned to the smaller towns of Sinjah and Al-Dinder, prompting an exodus of civilians from all three, mainly to neighboring Al-Gedaref and Blue Nile states.
Images on social media showed people of all ages wading across the Blue Nile.
Activists in both states say there is little shelter or food aid for the incomers. In Gedaref, they faced an onslaught of heavy rain while stranded in the state capital’s main market with no tents or blankets after schools that had served as displacement centers were emptied by the government, the local resistance committee said.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration said in a statement that since June 24, an estimated total of 136,130 people had been displaced in Sennar.
The state was already home to more than 285,000 people displaced from Khartoum and Al-Gezira states, meaning that many of those leaving over the last two weeks were likely to have been displaced for the second or third time. It also said that villages in Gedaref state, one of several possible targets for the RSF campaign, had also seen an exodus.
To the west of the country, local activists said at least 12 people were killed by artillery fire on a livestock market on Wednesday in the city of Al-Fashir which has seen a months-long fight for control between the RSF and the army and allied armed groups.
It has caused an exodus of tens of thousands west to Tawila and Jebel Mara, areas controlled by one of Sudan’s largest rebel groups led by Abdelwahid Al-Nur, who on Thursday offered to use his troops to secure Al-Fashir if both sides withdraw.
In a statement, Nur said that Al-Fashir, which along with nearby Zamzam camp is one of 14 locations flagged by monitors as approaching famine, could then resume its role as a hub for humanitarian aid delivery.
The army did not comment on the offer when asked by Reuters, while an RSF source said that the force accepted the offer in principle and hoped that the army and allied forces would accept the offer and exit the city.