The IDF continued its assault on Lebanon overnight Monday, attacking several targets throughout the country. In one attack in southern Lebanon, a building collapsed and 13 people were killed, witnesses reported. Others said that the IAF struck targets in southern Beirut. A weapons cache and trucks used to carry arms were also hit near Ba'al Bek in eastern Lebanon.
An Israeli missile from a "Menatetz" battery is fired at a Lebanese target.
Photo: IDF
Also on Monday night, the IDF thwarted an infiltration attempt when the forces identified a Hizbullah cell attempting to enter Israel along the central region of the border. The soldiers opened fire at the infiltrators, striking the target.
The IDF stepped up its offensive against Hizbullah on Monday and, in pinpointed ground incursions, razed the group's military outposts along the northern border as IAF fighter jets bombed stockpiles of long-range missiles capable of reaching Tel Aviv.
Thirty-five people were wounded in Hizbullah rocket attacks throughout the north on Monday. In the worst of the assaults, 11 were wounded, one seriously, when a building was struck by a Katyusha rocket in Haifa. On Monday night an unspecified strategic site was also hit, causing power outages across the region.
The air force bombed a launcher holding an Iranian Zelzal missile, which has a range of up to 160 kilometers and is capable of hitting Tel Aviv, destroying the missile before it could be fired.
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An Israeli gunner covers his ears as a heavy artillery piece fires at a target in southern Lebanon, near Kiryat Shmona, on the Israeli border, Sunday.
Photo: AP
In total, more than 130 rocket launch sites were bombed by the IAF in addition to Hizbullah cells, radar stations and bridges throughout the country.
Deputy IDF Chief of General Staff Maj.-Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky said Monday night that Operation Just Rewards was having the right effect on Hizbullah and that on Monday the group fired fewer rockets than the day before. Kaplinsky said that Israel was not surprised to find Zelzal missiles in the Hizbullah's arsenal.
"We acted before they were used against us," he said adding that Hizbullah was surprised by Israel's ability to obtain real-time intelligence on the terror group.
"We are looking to change the reality in northern Israel," he said at a press briefing in Tel Aviv Monday night. "We are hitting them and will continue to hit them until they are significantly weakened."
But despite the discovery of the Zelzal missiles, the Home Front Command on Monday decided not to order residents of Tel Aviv or the Gush Dan region to enter bomb shelters or security rooms. "All residents should do in the Gush Dan region is stay close to buildings and listen for sirens which would go off if missiles are on their way," said Col. Yehiel Kuperstein, a senior Home Front Command officer.
Israel will destroy Lebanese power plants if Hizbullah fires long-range missiles at strategic installations in northern Israel, a high-ranking IDF officer threatened on Monday.
"If their missiles hit petrochemical plants in Haifa we will consider bombing power plants in Lebanon," the senior officer warned, adding that Israel had already succeeded in impairing Hizbullah's ability to carry out attacks against Israel.
One of the main focal points of IDF operations in Lebanon, he said, was to prevent the transfer of new weapons and missiles to Hizbullah from Syria. To achieve that goal, the IDF has bombed the Beirut-Damascus road as well as other bridges throughout the country.
Despite the use of Syrian and Iranian missiles, the IDF, the officer said, was not interested in opening new fronts against the two countries. He said that Hizbullah was firing rockets purposely at the Golan Heights to try and draw Syria into the current fighting.
For now, he said, the IDF would not launch a massive ground incursion into southern Lebanon to push back Katyusha rocket launchers and would suffice with the current air campaign.
The IAF also continued on Monday to bomb Hizbullah's main headquarters in the southern Beirut neighborhood of Dahiya where the group's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, is believed to be. F-16s dropped dozens of bombs on the underground bunker but the IDF would not say whether Nasrallah had been hit.
Kaplinsky said he did not believe diplomatic pressure would force Israel to stop the military action against Hizbullah before its scheduled ending. "We need more time to deal a significant blow to Hizbullah," he said. "I believe we will get that time."
