Hezbollah fires 200 rockets and drones into Israel

GAZA   -    The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah Thursday launched more than 200 rockets and attack drones into northern Israel, in response to the killing of one of its senior commanders. Israel’s military said one of its officers was killed in the barrage, which started a number of fires.  The military also said it had targeted Hezbollah “military structures” and other targets in southern Lebanon in response.  Lebanese media reported that one person was killed in an Israeli drone strike in the town of Houla. The latest barrage, which followed one comprising 100 rockets on Wednesday afternoon, was one of the biggest so far in the nine months of cross-border violence which have raised fears of an all-out war. The Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli air strike near the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, Mohammed Nimah Nasser, was one of the most senior figures in the group to have been killed in the conflict. The Israeli military said Nasser commanded Hezbollah’s Aziz Unit, which is responsible for launching rockets from south-western Lebanon, and accused him of directing a “large number of terror attacks”. It also described him as “the counterpart” of Taleb Sami Abdullah, the commander of another unit whose killing last month prompted Hezbollah to launch more than 200 rockets and missiles into northern Israel in a single day.

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