ISTANBUL

The Lebanese Hezbollah group on Friday said it carried out 15 attacks targeting Israeli military sites.

This marks the largest number of attacks launched by the group in 35 days.

In separate statements, Hezbollah said it targeted the Israeli army’s Malkieh site twice, Al-Sammaqa, Ruwaisat Al-Alam, and Hadab Yarin sites with “appropriate weapons.”

It also said it attacked the surveillance and spy equipment in the army's Meron base, the Ramim site and the Ein Zeitim military base in northern Israel with rocket salvos.

The group said it also attacked a gathering of Israeli soldiers near the Metula military site, and another gathering in the vicinity of Talat al-Khazan area with artillery shells.

Hezbollah said that seven of its fighters were also killed in clashes with the Israeli army on Friday.

The new fatalities brought the total number of Hezbollah fighters killed in combat with Israeli forces since last October to 428, according to an Anadolu tally.

Earlier in the day, the Israeli army said Friday that around 20 rockets were launched from southern Lebanon toward the city of Safed and surrounding areas in the western Galilee region of northern Israel, causing several fires.

The rockets were detected as they were launched from southern Lebanon toward Safed and its vicinity, the Israeli army radio said on X.

The radio said that both the interception of the rockets and the impact of some of them led to fires breaking out in several spots in the Birya Forest, near the Ein Zeitim area in western Galilee.

It said that firefighting teams were dispatched to the site to extinguish the fires.

Meanwhile, sirens were activated in Sderot, Ibim, and Nir Am in the Gaza border region, marking the first such alert in three weeks, according to Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

Fears of a full-fledged war between Israel and Hezbollah have grown amid an exchange of cross-border attacks, and after the July 30 killing of senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr in Beirut.

The escalation comes against the backdrop of the conflict in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 40,200 Palestinians since the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion.

The military campaign has reduced much of the territory to rubble, and left most of the people homeless, hungry and prone to disease.



*Writing by Ahmed Asmar and Mohammad Sio