Hezbollah launches 'first stage' of response to martyrdom of Faud Shukr, Israel launches simultaneous 'pre-emptive' airstrikes across south Lebanon
News first broke from Israeli channels of Israel launching a large pre-emptive strike against Hezbollah launchers directed at Israel, and then we saw reports of rocket launches from Lebanon (although Hezbollah claims these started BEFORE the Israeli strikes).
Israel claims to have detected rockets aimed at central and north Israel and used 100 fighter jets to launch massive pre-emptive strikes, destroying 6000 rockets (they say they destroyed "thousands of launchers" which is totally implausible)... No casualties were caused! Israel says it detected Hezbollah plans to launch a huge number (6000) of rockets at Israel at 5am, and launched its airstrikes before then.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah claimed to have launched 320 rockets and drones at various targets within Israel as part of the 'first stage' of its response to the martyrdom of Faud Shukr in an Israeli bombing in Beirut a month ago. Israel admitted 210 rockets and 20 drones crossed into Israel, claiming most were intercepted but some damage and casualties were caused.
Hezbollah claims it targeted a strategic site near Tel Aviv with drones, declaring the first stage of its response is 'over', and that Sayed Nasrallah will give a speech this evening to reveal the target.
--
A lot of the details are still unclear. We should not unquestionably accept the Israeli narrative. But this seems like Israel was one step ahead of Hezbollah again and severely disrupted their plans to respond, which were already delayed by one month. Taking one month to launch 300 rockets at north Israel in response to the killing of your top general is a very weak response...
Iran, as usual, nowhere to be seen (except for General Salami still shamelessly doing his famous bragging and boasting). I guess Hezbollah got tired of waiting for Iran and tried to launch a huge rocket barrage but Israel knew about it and decided to launch the pre-emptive strikes they had warned about to disrupt the operation.