Lebanon’s Hezbollah claims to have launched explosive drones at Israel in response to the assassination of a Hamas official

Lebanon’s Hezbollah said on Saturday, August 10, that it had launched drones loaded with explosives on a base in northern Israel in response to the assassination the previous day of a leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Saida in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah fighters launched “explosive-laden drone squadrons” at an Israeli army base near the city of Safed “in response to the assassination perpetrated by the Israeli enemy in Saida”the pro-Iranian Lebanese Islamist movement said in a statement. This is “the first time” Hezbollah is targeting the base, the movement’s media office added.

First strike of this type in Saida

On Friday, an Israeli strike targeted a Hamas security official from the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain El-Heloue as he was in his vehicle in Sidon, a city near the camp. Hamas said his “commander” Samer Al-Hajj had been killed.

The Israeli army confirmed that it had carried out an airstrike “eliminated” Samer Al-Hajj, whom she introduced as “a high commander” Hamas in Lebanon. It was the first such strike in Sidon since Hezbollah opened a front against Israel in support of Hamas, the day after the start of the war in Gaza triggered by an attack by the Palestinian movement on Israeli soil on October 7.