Hezbollah fires 200 missiles and drones at Israel in joint Iran attack
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JERUSALEM: Iran’s proxy Hezbollah fired nearly 200 missiles and drones at the Jewish state throughout the night and into Thursday, in what Israeli media described as an “integrated joint attack by Hezbollah and Iran.”
The attacks led to violent retaliatory attacks by the Israel Defense Forces on Hezbollah strongholds in the Beirut suburbs.
The Israel Defense Forces said, “The IDF is resolutely operating against the Hezbollah terrorist organization following its decision to deliberately attack Israel on behalf of the Iranian regime. The IDF will not allow harm to Israeli civilians and will respond with force to any threat to the State of Israel.”
The terrorist group, which named its new operation “Eaten Straw”, claimed that it targeted Israeli military facilities in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, among other targets.
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Hezbollah members salute and raise the group’s yellow flags during the funeral of their comrades Ismail Baz and Mohammed Hussein Shuhuri, who were martyred in an Israeli attack on their vehicles, in Shehabiya, southern Lebanon, on April 17, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)
Matthew Levitt, a leading scholar on Hezbollah at the Washington Institute, told Fox News about “Eaten Straw”: “The term comes from a Qur’anic verse that describes destroying one’s enemies to the point where they are destroyed like grains of straw husks. In fact, this will lead to a huge response from Israel.”
Just days before Wednesday’s attacks, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun accused Hezbollah of pushing Lebanon to become a “second Gaza.”
“I think Hezbollah is trying to scare Israel into launching more operations, and I really hope that we won’t be afraid and that our government will do what it has to do,” Sarit Zehavi, an Israeli security expert at Israel’s Alma Research and Training Center, told Fox News Digital.
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A fireball rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in the southern suburbs of Beirut between March 10 and 11, 2026. (Fadel itani/AFP via Getty Images)
The Lebanese Armed Forces failed to meet the 2025 deadline given by President Trump to disarm the Hezbollah terrorist organization.
The Lebanese government announced on Tuesday its interest in direct talks with Israel to end the current conflict with Hezbollah, but an Israeli official claimed that Beirut “has not influenced Hezbollah’s behavior in any way,” according to a Times of Israel report on news site Y-Net.
Speaking on Wednesday, Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon told members of the United Nations Security Council in New York: “Lebanon now faces two options: Either the Lebanese government will take real action to rein in Hezbollah, or Israel will use its power to dismantle this terrorist organization. There is no other option.”
Lebanese-born Israeli Hezbollah expert Edy Cohen described the Lebanese government’s offers to Israel as political theater. He described the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, which resulted in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 requiring the Lebanese state and military to disarm Hezbollah, as a failed effort.
A woman uses a mobile phone while lying on a mattress at a train station used as an underground bomb shelter in Tel Aviv on March 10, 2026. (Olympia De Maismont/AFP via Getty Images)
Cohen told Fox News Digital: “I don’t believe the Lebanese government. This is a game between them and Hezbollah. The Lebanese have offered to accept dialogue with Israel for the first time since 1982. The first condition is a ceasefire. Hezbollah told the Lebanese government to make this offer to the Israelis. Hezbollah wants to stop this war. That’s how the Lebanese government is mocking us.”
Speaking during a United Nations Security Council meeting on Wednesday, Lebanese Ambassador Ahmad Arafa told the council: “The Lebanese people do not want war and the Lebanese government is moving forward with implementing its decisions and will not back down,” The National reported.
“No Lebanese government in our modern history has shown this level of courage and determination,” Arafa said, according to the national report. take back state authority“To restrict weapons to legitimate state institutions and to extend state control over the entire Lebanese territory through its own forces alone.”
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An Israeli official told the Times of Israel: “The Lebanese government needs to take control of their country, otherwise Hezbollah’s parts of Beirut will soon resemble Gaza.”
