The Israeli Air Force carried out a targeted air strike late Saturday night aimed at a Hezbollah arms smuggling route adjacent to the Jousieh border crossing between Syria and Lebanon, in the northern Beqa’a region.
“Hezbollah exploits border crossings including the Jousieh Crossing to smuggle weapons, transferred from Iran via Syria into Lebanon. The weapons are used for terror activities against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers operating in southern Lebanon,” the IDF said in a statement.
The Jousieh Crossing is under the control of the Syrian regime and is operated by Syrian security forces. According to the IDF, the weapons are transferred by Hezbollah’s 4400 Unit, which is responsible for the terror organization’s weapons smuggling operations from Iran via Syria.
“The IDF will continue to operate to thwart Hezbollah’s weapons smuggling operations and urges the Syrian and Lebanese authorities to prevent Hezbollah’s exploitation of civilian border crossings,” the IDF said.
On Sunday, Israel continued attacks on Hezbollah command centers embedded between civilian buildings in Beirut’s Dahieh neighborhood, a key Hezbollah stronghold.
“From those command centers, the Hezbollah terrorist organization is directing its terror activities against the State of Israel,” the IDF pointed out.
“All targets struck were deliberately embedded by the Hezbollah terrorist organization in the heart of civilian areas. This is a further example of how the Hezbollah terrorist organization cynically uses the Lebanese civilian population as a human shield.”
Prior to the strikes, numerous steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians, including collecting prior intelligence, leveraging aerial surveillance, and issuing advance warnings to the civilian population in the area.
Late Sunday afternoon, the IDF also struck a launcher from which rockets were fired at HaMifratz earlier in the day.
