Hezbollah on Wednesday unleashed its largest volley of rockets on northern Israel since late August. At around noon local time, nearly 50 rocket sirens sounded throughout settlements and towns in northern Israel as around 65 missiles rained down.

The settlement of Kiryat Shmona was hit, according to Israeli media, resulting in fires in surrounding fields – which has been a common feature of the conflict with Hezbollah. The settlements of Malchia, Ramot Naftali, and Beit Hillel were also targeted, but it remains unclear how many projectiles made it through.

Illustrative image: AFP/Getty/TNS

An Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) statement indicted that anti-air systems were able to intercept many rockets while failing to shoot down others.

Before Wednesday’s attack, Hezbollah’s daily rocket fire had significantly dropped and was at a bit of a lull. The IDF had last month launched a large-scale ‘preemptive attack’ on Lebanon, and Israeli officials attribute this action to quieting the ferocity of Hezbollah attacks in the week after.

The Jerusalem Post explains of the recent daily stats as follows:

The military did not explain why it missed certain rockets, though given the context, the sudden large volume after a relatively quiet period may have partially taken the air defense apparatus by surprise.

Prior to August 25, Hezbollah had at times launched 100 or even 200 rockets in a day against Israel’s North and frequently was launching dozens per day.

In that sense, it was clear on Wednesday that Hezbollah had re-crossed a threshold of challenging Israel with more rocket attacks after a period of time in which it had seemed deterred by the August 25 IDF preemptive strike.

Still, the Israeli August preemptive strikes are having their intended effect of serving as a major warning to the whole of the Lebanese government and people.

Israel has since Oct.7 held the threat over the populating of “bombing Lebanon back to the stone age” – as Israeli officials have often repeated – should Hezbollah keep escalating its attacks which have left some 80,000 Israelis evacuated from their homes.

On Sunday the head of the Christian political party Lebanese Forces (LF), Samir Geagea, charged Hezbollah with “confiscating the Lebanese people’s decision on war and peace, as if there were no state”. He has accused the Shia paramilitary group of endangering the whole nation against the will of the Lebanese people.

Samir Geagea, via AP

Geagea described that the tit-for-tat conflict on the southern border is “a war that the Lebanese people reject, but has been imposed on them.”

“It is a war that the Lebanese people do not want and over which the government has had no say. This war does not serve Lebanon, it has brought nothing to Gaza, nor alleviated its suffering one iota,” he added.