2 wounded in northern kibbutz rocket impact as IDF warns of possible ground invasion

( Times of Israel )

Barrages of Hezbollah rockets continued to pound northern Israel on Wednesday, as the IDF carried out fresh waves of airstrikes in south Lebanon and warned that a ground offensive could be the next step.

The terror group launched a barrage of 30 rockets toward the Western Galilee and towns east of Haifa on Wednesday afternoon, wounding two people in a direct impact in Kibbutz Sa’ar near Nahariya.

Magen David Adom said a 35-year-old man was seriously wounded by shrapnel and a 52-year-old man was moderately hurt.

Both were taken to Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya. Reports said the pair were running to seek shelter when the rocket hit nearby.

The barrage came not long after the terror group fired waves of rockets at the Carmel and Wadi Aras area in northern Israel as well as the city of Safed.

Forty rockets were fired at Safed, one of which directly hit a home in the city, causing major damage, but no injuries.

Hours earlier, Hezbollah fired a ballistic missile at the Tel Aviv area for the first time, amid the fiercest cross-border fighting in close to 20 years.

Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin, the chief of the IDF Northern Command, said the military needs to be “strongly prepared” for a ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“We have entered another phase of the campaign… The operation began with a very significant blow to Hezbollah’s capabilities, with an emphasis on [rocket] capabilities, and a very significant blow to the commanders and members of the organization,” Gordin said while visiting a drill simulating a ground operation in Lebanon on Tuesday, in remarks released by the IDF on Wednesday.

“We need to change the security situation. We need to be very strongly prepared to enter in a [ground] maneuver,” he added.

The IDF said Wednesday afternoon that it was calling up two reserve brigades to be deployed to northern Israel.

The military said the move, made following a fresh assessment, “will allow the continuation of the fighting effort against the Hezbollah terror organization, the protection of the citizens of the State of Israel, and the creation of the conditions for the safe return of the [displaced] residents of the north to their homes.”

Meanwhile, the IDF said Israeli Air Force fighter jets had struck more than 280 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon throughout Wednesday, with dozens of fighter jets participating in the strikes.

This included strikes on around 60 sites belonging to the Hezbollah intelligence division across Lebanon on Wednesday. The military said that the strikes carried out by fighter jets destroyed surveillance equipment, command rooms, and other infrastructure used by Hezbollah to build an intelligence picture.

Lebanese health authorities said 15 people were killed in Israeli strikes Wednesday, including two rare strikes in mountain areas outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds in the south and east.

The health ministry said an Israeli strike on the village of Joun in the Chouf mountains, southeast of Beirut, killed four people. Another Israeli strike killed three people in Maaysra — a Shiite-majority village in a mostly Christian mountain area about 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Beirut — and eight people were killed in Israeli strikes in the south, the ministry said.

Hezbollah, Shiite group, took responsibility for the rocket barrages on northern Israel throughout Wednesday, saying it targeted both Israeli towns and army bases.

Hezbollah said it launched rockets at an army base near Ilaniya in the Lower Galilee; the northern town of Hatzor near Safed; the IDF’s Northern Command in Safed; Kibbutz Sa’ar near Nahariya; and Kiryat Motzkin near Haifa.

A direct rocket impact in Safed caused major damage to a home but no injuries to the family, who had sought shelter in their reinforced room.

Wednesday’s rocket barrages were the latest in several days of sharply escalated violence along the northern border following 11 months of more limited cross-border fighting. Hezbollah started firing rockets and drones at Israel on October 8, one day after Hamas invaded southern Israel, slaughtered 1,200 people and abducted 251 people to Gaza.

Hezbollah on Wednesday announced the deaths of six more members — including Ibrahim Qubaisi, head of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile division — killed in Israeli strikes, bringing the terror group’s toll during the fighting since October 2023 to at least 512. The IDF believes this toll to be much higher.

Lebanese officials said more than 550 people in the country have been killed in Israeli airstrikes over the past few days, without differentiating between civilians and combatants. Lebanon’s foreign minister said the number of displaced Lebanese had soared to nearly 500,000 since Israel ramped up its military campaign.

Since the beginning of the fighting in the north last year, 26 civilians in Israel as well as 22 IDF soldiers and reservists have been killed by rocket and missile attacks from Lebanon. During the same period, in addition to the hundreds of Hezbollah operatives killed, around 130 civilians in Lebanon were reported dead in Israeli strikes.

Tens of thousands of Israelis have been displaced from their homes in the north for close to a year.