Nasrallah says Hezbollah targeted intelligence base near Tel Aviv and air defense base in Israel's heart

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday announced that Hezbollah’s attack on Israel on Sunday morning had targeted an intelligence base just outside Tel Aviv and an air defense base in the heart of Israel.

“We targeted the Glilot military intelligence base near Tel Aviv, around 110 kilometers from Lebanon's border,” said Nasrallah in a speech dedicated to explaining Hezbollah’s response to the killing of its top military chief Fouad Shukur, who was assassinated in an airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs around a month ago.

“The Glilot base is important for Israel's military intelligence and it contains Unit 8200, which is the unit concerned with spying and espionage,” Nasrallah said.

According to Israeli media reports, the base hosts headquarters of the Mossad spy agency, which has never revealed its address.

“Alongside Glilot, we chose a technical target, which is an air and missile defense base located 40 kilometers away from Tel Aviv and 75 kilometers away from Lebanon,” Hezbollah’s leader added, identifying the base as Ein Shemer.

“Our drones successfully managed to reach the Glilot and Ein Shemer bases,” he said. The Israeli army later denied that the Glilot base was hit.

Noting that Hezbollah deliberately avoided Israel’s civilians and infrastructure, Nasrallah said Hezbollah’s “strategy” of avoiding civilian targets since 1992 “has largely protected civilians in Lebanon.”

“Any injuries in Nahariyya, Acre and elsewhere were caused by interception missiles,” Nasrallah pointed out.

As for Israel’s claims that it managed to thwart Hezbollah’s attack by launching preemptive airstrikes, Nasrallah said: “Israel lied when it said that it hit our strategic missiles, knowing that we did not use them and we might use them in the future.”

Nasrallah clarified that only short-range Katyusha rockets were used to strike northern Israel and that drones were targeted at the bases in central Israel.

“Netanyahu and the occupation army claimed that a preemptive strike took place and that they foiled the operation, but this rhetoric is full of lies,” he said.

“All the sites targeted by Israel today had nothing to do with our operation,” Nasrallah pointed out, noting that only “two rocket launchpads” were hit after and not prior to the operation.

“The enemy started its raids 30 minutes prior to our operation and it did not have intelligence information despite all the U.S. and Western intelligence efforts. It sensed a certain movement that pushed it to carry out these raids and all the targeted areas had nothing to do with our operation,” he clarified.

As for Hezbollah’s next moves, Nasrallah said: “If the outcome of our initial retaliation operation turns our to be satisfying, we will consider our response as complete, but if it turns out to be insufficient, we will reserve the right to respond later.”

“Hezbollah's response has ended and at the current stage Lebanon can rest and the Lebanese who fled can return to their homes,” Nasrallah added, noting that Israel has also indicated that the exchanges have ended for now.

“The enemy must understand that Lebanon is no longer weak and that a day might come when we will invade you with a military band,” Nasrallah boasted.

Moreover, Hezbollah’s leader said that the operation “might prove useful for the Palestinian side” in its ongoing negotiations with Israel over a ceasefire in Gaza.

“The message to the enemy and the Americans who are behind it that any hope that the support fronts will be silenced is a delusional hope despite the sacrifices, especially on the Lebanese front,” Nasrallah added.

“There is a resistance, a will to resist and a community that protects the resistance, and this is the equation that we have reconsolidated for protection,” he said.

Israel launched air strikes into Lebanon on Sunday morning, claiming it destroyed "thousands" of Hezbollah rocket launchers and thwarted a major attack, as Hezbollah insisted it had been able to deliver a drone and rocket barrage of its own.

The result was the biggest exchange of fire in 10 months of a war which began with a Hamas attack launched from Gaza and has triggered both new violence on the Lebanon-Israel border and fears of a broader conflagration in the Middle East.

The Israeli military said around 100 of its fighter jets had destroyed launchers "aimed toward northern Israel and some... aimed toward central Israel."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet the strikes were "not the final word" in the campaign against Hezbollah.

A soldier in the Israeli navy was killed in combat and two more wounded, the military said, with an official telling AFP their boat may have been hit by one of their own side's air-defense interceptors.

The office of the United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the UNIFIL peacekeeping force urged "all to cease fire and refrain from further escalatory action."

Hezbollah has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces throughout the Gaza war, in a campaign Hezbollah says is in support of Palestinian ally Hamas.

But fears of a wider regional conflagration soared after attacks in late July blamed on Israel killed Iran-aligned militant leaders, including a top Hezbollah commander, Fouad Shukur, prompting vows of revenge.

- 'Initial response' -

Hezbollah said its militants launched "a large number of drones" and "more than 320" Katyusha rockets targeting "enemy positions" across the border.

The Lebanese movement said its attack was an "initial response" to Shukur's killing, adding that it had "ended with total success," although the extent of the damage on the Israeli side was not immediately clear.

An AFP photographer in Acre, 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the border, reported damage to three homes from a Hezbollah rocket that struck a roof, with shrapnel smashing windows and destroying a bed.

"There were explosions in the area of Haifa," said Abigail Levy, a resident of the city south of Acre. "I was stopped and was told not to go to the beach."

AFPTV footage from early Sunday showed dozens of interceptor rockets being launched into dense clouds above the Upper Galilee in northern Israel, while an AFP photographer saw a Hezbollah drone exploding into a huge fireball as it was intercepted by the Israeli Air Force.

Hezbollah announced two of its fighters had been killed, while its ally the Amal movement also reported the death of a member. No casualties were immediately reported in Israel.

Military spokesman, Nadav Shoshani, said Hezbollah's strikes were "part of a larger attack that was planned and we were able to thwart a big part of it this morning."

Israeli authorities declared a 48-hour state of emergency but later relaxed most of the restrictions.

There was some disruption to flights in Israel and Lebanon.

- 'Stop the escalation' -

The fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah has killed hundreds, mostly in Lebanon, and displaced tens of thousands of residents on both sides of the border.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati told an emergency cabinet meeting he was in contact with "Lebanon's friends to stop the escalation."

At U.S. President Joe Biden's direction, "senior U.S. officials have been communicating continuously with their Israeli counterparts," U.S. National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement.

The United States is Israel's top military supplier.