Hezbollah targets Israel, Tel Aviv suburbs with advanced missiles and attack drones

Hezbollah said it launched missiles at an Israeli military intelligence base in the suburbs of Tel Aviv early on Thursday, the Iran-backed group's latest claim in a major operation against Israel it announced hours earlier.

Hezbollah fighters "targeted the Glilot base (the headquarters of the 8200 Military Intelligence Unit)... in the Tel Aviv suburbs with a barrage of advance missiles," the group said in a statement.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said earlier that they had carried out a joint missile operation with ally Hezbollah against targets in Israel.

In a statement carried by the Fars and Tasnim news agencies, the Guards said the "joint and integrated operation" involved a missile attack by Iran carried out in conjunction with missile and drone fire from Hezbollah.

The operation focused on "more than 50 targets" on Israeli territory, the statement added, including Israeli military bases in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Beersheba.

The Guards also targeted the U.S. bases at Al-Kharj in Saudi Arabia and Al-Azraq in Jordan.

Warning messages were issued in Saudi Arabia but no damage was reported, according to AFP correspondents, while Jordan reported there had been no strike on its territory.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah said it had launched rockets and advanced missiles at northern Israel as part of a new operation against its foe, as Israel carried out fresh strikes on south Beirut.

Hezbollah in a statement said that "in response to the criminal aggression against dozens of Lebanese cities and towns and Beirut's southern suburbs", its fighters targeted sites in northern Israel "with dozens of rockets" as part of a new operation announced a short time earlier.

In subsequent statements, the group said its fighters also targeted other locations in northern Israel as part of the operation, including the headquarters of the Israeli military's northern command near Safed and two bases in Haifa "with volleys of advanced missiles".

Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X that "we will respond to them", referring to the Hezbollah operation announcement, and vowed a severe response.

The severe response came in violent strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs and a targeting of Ramlet al-Bayda in the heart of Beirut, a place where hundreds of displaced civilians had been sleeping in tents or in the open after fleeing conflict zones.

Hezbollah later said it targeted Nahariya twice with a swarm of explosive drones and a salvo of rockets, and the Beit Lid base with a salvo of advanced missiles.

The group also targeted the Ya'ara barracks and the Meron base with a swarm of explosive drones and attacked soldiers in a position in Markaba with artillery shells.

Later in the day, Hezbollah targeted Israel's air defense systems in Ma'alot-Tarshiha and near the town of Caesarea in the country's center, home to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's private residence.

In a statement, the Iran-backed group said that "in response to the criminal Israeli aggression that struck dozens of Lebanese cities and towns, including Beirut's southern suburbs", it targeted the air defense system near Caesarea with "a salvo of advanced missiles".

It said it also targeted with attack drones and salvos of missiles Admit, Shlomi, Even Menachem and Zariit in north Israel.

- 'Biggest barrage' of war -

The Israeli military said on Thursday that Hezbollah had fired around 200 rockets at Israel the night before, in what it described as the Lebanese armed group's "biggest barrage" since the war began.

"Last night, Hezbollah timed a simultaneous attack with Iran, firing rockets and drones at towns and communities across Israel. The numbers (are) about approximately 200 rockets, approximately 20 UAVs (drones) and combine those with ballistic missiles that were being fired from Iran in the same time," military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told journalists in a briefing.

"This was Hezbollah's biggest barrage" since the start of the war, he said, but added "we had a good aerial defense and rapid response, resulting in minimal casualties, only two or three direct hits... and a few civilians that were lightly injured".