Hezbollah fired on central Israel on Tuesday, the terrorist group’s first long-range attack since the start of the Iran war, as IDF airstrikes hammered Hezbollah and Israel threatened Iranian officials in Lebanon.

Tehran-backed Hezbollah reprised its rocket and drone attacks on Israel on Monday, after a long hiatus, in retaliation for the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a wave of joint US-Israeli strikes.

Hezbollah fired three rockets toward Tel Aviv and the Haifa area, setting off sirens across central Israel and parts of the north.

Air defenses intercepted two of the rockets and one landed in an open area, causing no injuries, the IDF said.

Hezbollah overall fired dozens of rockets and several drones at northern Israel on Tuesday. One rocket hit a home in a border community, injuring one.

After firing on northern Israel, Hezbollah said it targeted an Israeli army base in response to the “criminal Israeli aggression that targeted dozens of Lebanese cities and towns, including the southern suburbs of Beirut.”

Hezbollah also claimed to have downed an Israeli drone and fired at Israeli Merkava tanks near the Lebanese villages of Kfar Shouba and Kfarkela.

A senior Hezbollah official said that after more than a year of abiding by a ceasefire as Israel’s strikes continued on Lebanon, the group’s patience has ended, leaving it with no option but to fight Israel.

“The Zionist enemy wanted an open war, which it has not stopped since the ceasefire agreement,” Mohamoud Komati said. “So let it be an open war.”

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United States, France and Egypt on Tuesday that Hezbollah has been firing rockets from areas north of the Litani River, outside an area south of the river and along the border with Israel, where Lebanese troops have earlier said they are in full control.

Israel says ‘no safe place’ for Iran in Lebanon

In response to the attacks, the Israeli military issued an unusual threat against Iranian regime officials in Lebanon, warning that they will be targeted if they do not leave the country within 24 hours.

“The IDF warns representatives of the Iranian terror regime who are still in Lebanon to leave immediately before being targeted,” said army spokesman Col. Avichay Adraee.

“The IDF warns that it will not tolerate any presence of representatives of the Iranian terror regime in Lebanon and will grant regime representatives currently in Lebanon 24 hours to leave the country,” Adraee said. “After that, there will be no safe place for representatives of the Iranian regime in Lebanon, and the IDF will target them wherever they are found.”

The warning came as Israel carried out airstrikes around Lebanon. The IDF said the Israeli Air Force had carried out a wave of airstrikes against some 60 Hezbollah targets across southern Lebanon.

According to the IDF, the strikes targeted weapon depots, missile launchers, command centers, and other infrastructure belonging to the Lebanese terror group.

The military said it struck several “central” sites belonging to Hezbollah and the Hamas terror group in Sidon and Tyre.

“The infrastructure sites were used by the terror organizations to advance and carry out various terror attacks against IDF troops and Israeli civilians,” the IDF said.

Before carrying out the strikes, the IDF issued evacuation warnings for Lebanese civilians in the area.

Hezbollah ally Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya said its command center in Sidon was targeted by Israel, after the IDF told people to flee the area within 300 meters (328 yards) of a building in the coastal Lebanese city.

The IDF also issued an evacuation warning for buildings in the Lebanese coastal city of Tyre and three villages in southern Lebanon, ahead of airstrikes against Hezbollah infrastructure. The IDF has in total warned the residents of more than 80 villages in Lebanon to evacuate.

In other strikes, the IDF said it struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher in Lebanon used in a barrage on the Golan Heights. According to the military, the launcher was hit in a drone strike within minutes of the barrage of some 15 rockets.

The IDF also said that a drone strike killed a Hezbollah operative, alongside several other members of the terror group, who fired an anti-tank missile at Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, near the village of Arnoun.

“Hezbollah made a very big mistake when it attacked us,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a visit to the Palmachim Airbase with Defense Minister Israel Katz and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir.

“We have already responded forcefully, and we will respond with even greater and additional force,” Netanyahu said.

Hezbollah is dragging Lebanon into a war “solely because of the death of that mass murderer with whom they have no connection,” Netanyahu said, referring to Iran’s slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

“They need to look out for themselves, and they would do well to do so quickly. We will continue to do what is necessary for our defense,” Netanyahu said.

Officials in Lebanon said at least 50 people had been killed in the airstrikes and 335 wounded, alongside tens of thousands who were displaced.

The IDF said it had sent additional troops into southern Lebanon and took new positions on several strategic points close to the border.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the Lebanese army was evacuating some of its border positions.

Also, in Tehran, an Israeli airstrike killed Daoud Alizadeh, the acting commander of the Lebanon Corps in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, the IDF said.

Alizadeh had taken responsibility for the IRGC Quds Force’s Lebanon Corps from Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Damascus in April 2024, making him “the highest-ranking Iranian commander responsible for Lebanon,” according to the military.

Syria bolsters border as thousands flee

Syria reinforced its border with Lebanon with rocket units and thousands of troops, eight Syrian and Lebanese sources told Reuters.

The Syrian officers said the Syrian reinforcement operation began in February but sped up in recent days. The Syrian and Lebanese armed forces do not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Syrian officers, including a senior member of the military, said the move was aimed at preventing arms and drugs smuggling as well as blocking Hezbollah or other terrorists from infiltrating Syria.

A Syrian security official said Damascus had no plans for military action against any neighboring country, “But Syria is prepared to deal with any security threat to itself or its partners.”

Thousands of Syrians living in Lebanon also crossed back into Syria, fleeing the Israeli strikes.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said the number of people crossing from Lebanon into Syria jumped on Monday to 10,629 from typically between 3,900 and 4,400 a day since the holy Islamic month of Ramadan began in February. The vast majority were Syrian, but a small number of Lebanese citizens also crossed.

The Lebanese government also pushed back against Hezbollah on Tuesday. Lebanese broadcaster LBCI reported that the Lebanese army arrested 12 armed Hezbollah members at one of its checkpoints on Tuesday.

Their arrest came after Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam declared Hezbollah’s military operations “illegal acts.”

Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham called on the US to join the Lebanese theater, telling US President Donald Trump to join Israel in striking Hezbollah.

“Fly with Israel and go after Hezbollah, which has American blood on its hands. Not only take the mothership of Iran. Also take the proxy of Hezbollah,” Graham told reporters on Capitol Hill.

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1 PM: Iran’s nuke program would have been ‘immune in months’; Witkoff: They bragged to us about enrichment

2 IDF hits Iran’s ‘leadership complex’ in Tehran; 12 Israelis hurt in Iran missile strikes

3 Rubio cites planned Israeli attack as a key reason US launched strikes against Iran

4 ‘Depart now’: US tells its citizens to urgently leave almost all Mideast countries, including Israel

5 Report: Israel hacked Tehran traffic cameras to track Khamenei ahead of assassination

6 IDF sends troops further into south Lebanon and strikes Beirut amid Hezbollah attacks

7 Iran claims Hormuz Strait is closed, threatens to set shipping there ‘ablaze’

8 Israel strikes building where Iranian clerics said gathering to elect new supreme leader

2026 US-Israel war with Iran

IAF Israeli Air Force

IDF Israel Defense Forces

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