Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday said that war with Hezbollah could be getting closer and that such a conflict could lead the terror group to seriously strike Haifa.

Gallant said that in light of the increasing likelihood of war in the North, Haifa needs to make more comprehensive preparations for being hit by large numbers of the terror group's rockets.

Hezbollah has 150,000 rockets and mortars and could fire potentially up to 8,000 rockets per day, several levels of magnitude greater than what Hamas was able to do other than for one day on October 7. 

Its rockets are also more precise, long-range, and destructive.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant speaks during a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at Israel's Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, Israel December 18, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura)
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant speaks during a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at Israel's Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, Israel December 18, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura)

How much damage could Hezbollah do to Haifa?

Combining those factors together, defense officials believe that even if Iron Dome maintained an 80-90% shoot-down rate, enough rockets would get through the missile shield to do major damage to Haifa and some other cities.
Israeli defense officials still believe Israel would "win" such a war in the military sense and that unprecedented levels of air force strikes in Lebanon would degrade Hezbollah's rocket power within several days or a couple of weeks, but that the early period would harm the home front far more than Hamas, and that Hezbollah could manage rocket fire for longer than Hamas.