TEHRAN - Lebanon’s Hezbollah has targeted Israeli military positions in the northern settlements.

The resistance movement announced the settlements of Kiryat Shmona and Shamir were targeted with barrages of Falaq and Katyusha rockets. 

Israeli military informed settlers in Kiryat Shmona not to leave fortified areas, as sirens repeatedly sounded, as well as in three other settlements. Israeli Army Radio acknowledged that a building in Kiryat Shmona was hit by Hezbollah's rocket attacks.

The Lebanese resistance has been acting as a support front in solidarity with Gaza since October 8, 2023. The daily exchange of fire with the Israeli military has at times risked blowing into a full-scale war. 

Some 100,000 Israelis have left the north and sought refuge in Tel Aviv and elsewhere. Analysts have put the number at 300,000. Officials in the north have accused the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of abandoning them. 

Experts believe there is not much else that Tel Aviv can do to bring the settlers back unless there is a ceasefire in Gaza. In that case, Hezbollah has said it will stop attacks. 

The Lebanese resistance movement issued its first statement of the day on Sunday that read: 

“In support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and in backing their heroic and honorable resistance, and in response to the enemy's attacks on (Lebanon’s) resilient southern villages and peaceful homes, especially the horrific massacre in the town of Faroun that resulted in the martyrdom and injury of civil defense members, the Islamic Resistance fighters bombed the Kiryat Shmona settlement on Sunday, 8-9-2024, with a barrage of Falaq rockets.”

Reports suggest five batches of about 100 surface-to-surface rockets were launched from southern Lebanon.

In a second statement, Hezbollah said its fighters bombed “the Kiryat Shmona settlement for the second time with an intense barrage of rockets”.

A third statement said the Lebanese resistance movement “bombed the Shamir settlement with a barrage of Katyusha rockets”.

Hezbollah targeted Israeli “spy equipment at the Malkia settlement with an attack drone, hitting it directly and destroying it,” the movement declared in a fourth statement. 

In a fifth statement, Hezbollah “targeted [Israeli] spy equipment at the Ruwaisat Al-Alam site in the occupied Lebanese Kfar Shuba Hills with appropriate weapons, hitting them directly and destroying them.”
 
The maritime Ras al-Naqoura site and the positions of Israeli officers and soldiers were the subject of a swarm of assault drones, according to a sixth statement by Hezbollah on Sunday, which added that the targets were hit precisely. 

In another statement, Hezbollah also announced that “a gathering of Israeli enemy soldiers was targeted with artillery shells, resulting in a direct hit”. 

At the same time, Israeli assaults on southern Lebanese villages continued, with airstrikes targeting the town of Maroun al-Ras and another strike on the village of Aytaroun, both close to the Lebanese border. 

Hezbollah's operations on Sunday mainly came in response to Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon's villages, particularly the massacre in Faroun, which killed at least three medical personnel and left several wounded. Among the injured were two with the Lebanese civil defense who are reportedly in critical condition. The operations were also part of the daily support for the people and resistance fighters in the Gaza Strip.   

Lebanese Health Minister Firas al-Abiad has disclosed that since October 8 last year, 27 emergency personnel and health workers have been killed while 94 others  wounded in the Israeli aggression on Lebanon.