Large parts of Israel come under rocket fire as Hezbollah retaliates for strike on its leader Nasrallah

Large parts of the country were targeted by Hezbollah rocket fire on Saturday, causing the broadest rocket alerts Israel has seen during the war so far, after an Israeli attempt to kill Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut Friday evening.

Starting in the hours after the strike on Nasrallah, whose outcome wasn’t immediately clear, Hezbollah began firing small barrages at northern Israel, before sharply ramping up the rocket fire on Saturday morning with two ballistic missiles and several barrages.

No casualties or significant damage had been caused by the attacks at the time of publication.

The IDF struck the underground headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut’s Dahiyeh district around 6 p.m. on Friday, before striking several weapon depots in the same district amid widespread airstrikes throughout Lebanon.

Friday evening, two houses in Safed were damaged after some 69 rockets were fired at the Upper Galilee in two bursts. Another five rockets were launched at the Western Galilee.

While Hezbollah didn’t comment on Nasrallah’s condition for several hours, the terror group quickly took responsibility for the rocket attacks.

After several hours of quiet, the rocket fire resumed in the morning, with a relatively small number of launches causing the widest rocket alerts of the war so far.

🔴 Rocket Alert [07:59:04] (159):

• בית העלמין החדש עכו, הר חלוץ, חוות אירוח גורן, טל - אל, ינוח ג'ת, פקיעין החדשה, אזור תעשייה טמרה, ערב אל נעים, כסרא סמיע
• HaAmakim — Hoshaya, Merkaz Hever, Kfar Kana, Tziporit Industrial Zone, Omen Settlements, Ram On, HaYogev pic.twitter.com/xH0I8h25IO

— ILRedAlert (@ILRedAlert) September 28, 2024

Alarm sirens blared from the northern border to the northern foothills of Samaria, including the Krayot outskirts of Haifa, Acre, Nazareth and several other towns.

The IDF said that only five launches were detected, most of which were intercepted. Israeli media reported that the launch targets were spread across a wide area, which caused the large number of alerts.

Then, the IDF said that a missile was fired at the area of Nazareth and the Jezreel Valley, which was intercepted.

Another ballistic missile was fired at Tel Aviv, but fell into the sea and didn’t active alarm sirens. A first ballistic surface-to-surface missile to be launched by Hezbollah early on Friday morning was intercepted by the IDF’s aerial defenses.

Two other barrages of five and ten rockets respectively caused widespread alerts across the surroundings of Haifa, the Upper and Lower Galilee and the Jezreel Valley.

In a first, a rocket launch also targeted the area north of Ramallah, causing alerts in settlements including Beit El and Ofarim.