200 terrorists killed, 140 launchers destroyed in latest airstrikes

The targets included a launch facility from which rockets were fired into the western Galilee and central Israel on Tuesday and Wednesday, the military added.

Israeli airstrikes have killed about 200 Hezbollah terrorists and destroyed 140 rocket launchers over the past week, the Israeli military announced Thursday morning.

The IDF said the launchers posed “an immediate threat” to the Israeli home front and soldiers operating in southern Lebanon.

The targets included a launch facility from which rockets were fired into the western Galilee and central Israel on Tuesday and Wednesday, the military added.

Among the terrorists eliminated in the attacks were the head of battalion operations and the head of anti-tank weapons battalion of Hezbollah’s Radwan force in the coastal sector.

“These attacks and killings constitute further damage to the terrorist organization Hezbollah’s ability to promote and conduct terrorist operations from southern Lebanon against the Israeli hinterland on the northern border,” the IDF said.

Meanwhile, Lebanese media reported new airstrikes on Beirut’s Dahieh district. Dahieh is a Shia stronghold in the southern part of Lebanon’s capital. The IDF said on Wednesday it had destroyed “a majority” of the Iranian-backed terror group’s weapons storage and production facilities located beneath the district.

“Over the past two decades, the terrorist organization Hezbollah has set up dozens of weapons production sites and storage facilities in the heart of the Dahieh district, the organization’s government stronghold. These sites, systematically hidden beneath civilian buildings, have produced and stockpiled hundreds of missiles intended to cause significant damage to the State of Israel,” the military said.

After the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Hezbollah began launching rockets and drones daily at communities in northern Israel. More than 68,000 residents of northern Israel have been driven from their homes. Hezbollah leaders have repeatedly said they would continue the attacks to prevent Israelis from returning to their homes.

At least 1,200 people were killed and 252 Israelis and foreigners taken hostage in Hamas attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7.

Of the 97 remaining hostages, more than thirty have been declared dead. Hamas has also held two Israeli civilians captive since 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two soldiers killed in 2014.

(WITH ANI INPUTS)