Hezbollah hurled dozens of projectiles into Israel early Wednesday, including a missile aimed at Tel Aviv that was the militant group’s deepest strike yet, and the Israeli military said it would activate reserve troops in response to the rising tensions.
The Israeli military said it intercepted the surface-to-surface missile, which marked a further escalation after Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed hundreds of people.
Hezbollah said it fired a Qader 1 ballistic missile targeting the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, which it blames for a recent string of targeted killings of its top commanders and for an attack last week in which explosives hidden in pagers and walkie-talkies killed dozens of people and wounded thousands, including many Hezbollah members.
The Israeli military said it was the first time a projectile fired from Lebanon had reached central Israel. Hezbollah claimed to have targeted an intelligence base near Tel Aviv last month in an aerial attack, but there was no confirmation.
The Palestinian Hamas militant group in Gaza repeatedly targeted Tel Aviv in the opening months of the war.
The announcement about reserve troops indicated that Israel is planning even tougher action against Hezbollah. The army said it would call up two reserve brigades for missions in the north.
“This will enable the continuation of combat against the Hezbollah terrorist organization,” the military said.
Hezbollah’s latest strikes included dozens of rockets fired Wednesday into northern Israel, the military said. Two people suffered shrapnel wounds in the agricultural community of Kibbutz Saar, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service.
Israel responded with its own new strikes on Hezbollah. In Lebanon, at least three people were killed and nine wounded in an Israeli strike near Byblos, according to the country’s Health Ministry. The coastal town is north of Beirut and far from Hezbollah’s main strongholds.
