PM vows to keep up attacks as needed, despite Iran truce

IDF says it killed Hezbollah chief’s secretary as some 70 rockets fired from Lebanon

No injuries or damage reported in repeated attacks on Israeli border towns; IDF: 3,000 projectiles fired from south Lebanon since March 2, proving Beirut ‘lied’ about disarming group

The secretary of Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem was killed on Wednesday evening in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut, the Israel Defense Forces announced Thursday.

Ali Yusuf Harshi was targeted in a strike in Beirut’s Tallet Khayat neighborhood, outside Hezbollah’s Dahiyeh stronghold. Footage showed that the strike partially collapsed a multistory building.

The military said Harshi was Qassem’s nephew and personal secretary.

“Harshi was a close associate and personal adviser to Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem, and played a central role in managing his office and his security,” the military said in a statement.

The military said Thursday evening that Hezbollah had fired some 70 rockets from Lebanon at northern Israel since the morning. There were no reports of injuries or damage as the rockets were either intercepted or allowed to strike open areas.

The IDF said that overnight it struck two “central” Litani River crossings that were used by the Iran-backed terror group to transfer “thousands of weapons, rockets and launchers” into southern Lebanon.

Additionally, some 10 weapons depots, rocket launchers and Hezbollah headquarters were struck in southern Lebanon, the military added.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Harshi’s killing on X, writing in a Hebrew-language post: “Our message is clear: Whoever acts against Israeli civilians will be targeted. We will continue to strike Hezbollah wherever necessary, until we restore full security to the residents of the north.”

The IDF also said Thursday that it had killed a top commander in a Hezbollah-allied militia in Lebanon, along with eight other operatives, in a strike in Sidon on Wednesday.

The strike killed Maher Qassem Hamdan, who the IDF said had been the commander of the Lebanese Resistance Companies in the Shebaa area, close to Israel’s border. The militia, also known as the Lebanese Resistance Brigades, is funded, trained, armed, and was founded by Hezbollah.

The military said Hamdan had been responsible for “recruiting terrorists, supplying weapons, and funding the Lebanese Companies” in Shebaa.

According to the IDF, Hamdan and seven other members of the militia fled from Shebaa to Sidon, where they were targeted and killed.

The killings on Wednesday came amid the Israeli Air Force’s largest wave of airstrikes yet against Hezbollah in the current conflict. Israel carried out the strikes after announcing that it would keep fighting the Iran-backed terror group in Lebanon, despite the new ceasefire with Tehran that came into place hours earlier. Iran and mediator Pakistan asserted that the truce also applied to Lebanon, but the US and Israel said it did not.

Among the targets of the Wednesday strikes, the IDF said, were Hezbollah command centers and other military infrastructure, including intelligence headquarters and offices used by Hezbollah to plan attacks on IDF troops and Israeli civilians; infrastructure of Hezbollah’s rocket and naval units; and assets of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force and aerial unit.

The strikes killed over 200 people, according to a toll from Lebanon’s health ministry, which did not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Defense Minister Israel Katz said Thursday that more than 200 Hezbollah operatives had been killed.

“Operation Eternal Darkness was a very powerful blow to Hezbollah, leaving it stunned and confused by the depth of the penetration and the scale of the strike,” said Katz in a video statement, adding that the terror group is “pleading for a ceasefire, and its Iranian patrons are also applying pressure and issuing threats, out of serious concern that Israel will crush Hezbollah.”

“The IDF is prepared and ready to act with force if Iran fires at Israel,” he warned.

Katz also detailed the IDF’s efforts to establish a new “security zone” in southern Lebanon, saying it includes “four lines.”

The first is the border line, where he said the IDF would raze Lebanese villages to prevent Hezbollah from using them to stage attacks on Israel.

The second is the “defensive line” in Lebanon, where the IDF currently holds five forward army posts. Katz said it would be expanded to 15 posts in southern Lebanon.

The third is the “anti-tank line” from which Hezbollah could launch anti-tank guided missiles directly at Israeli communities. The IDF said on Tuesday that it had completed its deployment along this line.

The fourth is the Litani River, where Katz said the IDF would “prevent further infiltration of terrorists and the return of residents southward.”

“At the same time, the IDF will strike from the air… with great force, the terrorists and [rocket] launchers in the Litani area and launch sites across Lebanon outside the Litani area,” he added.

Hezbollah started attacking Israel with rockets and drones on March 2, after holding its fire for more than a year, following a November 2024 ceasefire deal that mostly ended its previous round of fighting with Israel.

Since resuming attacks, the Iran-backed group has been firing hundreds of rockets per day, according to the IDF. The vast majority of the daily rocket fire has been directed at Israeli forces operating in southern Lebanon, with only a few dozen projectiles crossing the border into Israel.

Israeli officials have said the IDF is establishing a demilitarized “security zone” in southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, until the threat of Hezbollah is removed.

Twelve IDF soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon amid the fighting against Hezbollah, two civilians were killed by Hezbollah rockets, and an Israeli civilian was mistakenly killed in the north by Israeli artillery shelling.

Lebanon says over 1,700 people have been killed and nearly 6,000 wounded in Lebanon since the start of the fighting on March 2.

IDF: Hezbollah fire proves Lebanon ‘lied’ about disarming group

The IDF also said Thursday that Hezbollah had fired a total of some 3,000 rockets and other projectiles from areas south of the Litani River throughout the current fighting, which it said proved the Lebanese army had “lied” about dismantling the terror group’s infrastructure in the area.

“On [January 8], the Lebanese army announced the completion of the first phase of the weapons confinement operation, claiming it had successfully disarmed the area south of the Litani River. However, we doubted the credibility of this announcement,” army spokesman Col. Avichay Adraee said in a statement.

“Today, it is clear that this announcement was nothing but an outright lie,” he said.

The thousands of launches from southern Lebanon are the “strongest evidence of the complete failure of the weapons confinement operation in disarming the Hezbollah terror organization and in clearing the area of its terrorist infrastructure,” Adraee asserted, adding that it also indicated the Lebanese army’s “severe failure” in preventing Hezbollah from crossing the Litani River and moving operatives and weapons into southern Lebanon.

The IDF also said Thursday that ground troops in southern Lebanon killed a Hezbollah operative and captured a cache of weapons in a tunnel shaft.

Troops of the 401st Armored Brigade identified a shaft leading to an underground Hezbollah site, from which an operative emerged and was killed in “close quarters combat,” the military said.

The IDF said that inside the tunnel shaft, the troops found a cache of explosive devices, rockets, RPGs and grenades.

The troops located and destroyed several more Hezbollah positions in the area, where additional weapons were found, the IDF said.

The Israeli Air Force also struck a building in the area where two Hezbollah operatives were identified by the 215th Artillery Regiment, the IDF said.

In the wake of the ceasefire announcement, and even amid the initial wave of Israeli strikes, Hezbollah held its fire for most of Wednesday.

Shortly after 5 p.m., though, it launched a rocket at Israel’s Galilee, triggering sirens in the border communities of Shtula and Netua. The projectile hit an open area, and no injuries were reported.

Overnight, rocket warning sirens blared again in the Galilee and in the border communities of Manara and Margaliot. Hezbollah said in a statement that the attacks came in response to what it described as Israeli ceasefire violations.

On Thursday morning, sirens sounded in the community of Avivim, as Hezbollah appeared to launch yet another attack. Several hours later, Hezbollah fired rockets at the border city of Kiryat Shmona, and sporadic attacks persisted later in the day, including on Nahariya.

No injuries or damage were reported from any of the attacks. All of the rockets were either intercepted or allowed to fall in open areas, the IDF said.

Nava Freiberg, agencies and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.