Hezbollah, Firing More Than 50 Rockets, Strikes Golan Heights in Israel Amid American Push for Cease-Fire

The attack on Wednesday came a day after Secretary Blinken met with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar as he pressed ahead with the latest diplomatic mission to secure a cease-fire in the war in Gaza

AP/Mohammad Zaatari
A Lebanese soldier in front a car that was hit by an Israeli strike at the southern port city of Sidon, August 21, 2024. AP/Mohammad Zaatari

Lebanon’s Hezbollah has launched more than 50 rockets, hitting a number of private homes in Israel’s Golan Heights.

The attack on Wednesday came a day after Secretary Blinken met with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar as he pressed ahead with the latest diplomatic mission to secure a cease-fire in the war in Gaza, even as Hamas and Israel signaled that challenges remain.

Hamas in a new statement called the latest proposal presented to it a “reversal” of what it agreed to previously and accused America of acquiescing to what it called “new conditions” from Israel. There was no immediate American response.

First responders in Golan Heights said they treated a 30-year-old man who was moderately wounded with shrapnel injuries in Wednesday’s attack. One house was engulfed in flames, and firefighters said they prevented a bigger disaster by stopping a gas leak.

Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terrorist group, said the attack was in response to an Israeli strike deep into Lebanon on Tuesday night that killed one and injured 19.

An Israeli airstrike on the Lebanese coastal city of Sidon on Wednesday killed the brother of a high-ranking official from the Palestinian faction Fatah’s military wing, state press and Palestinian officials in Lebanon said.

Khalil al-Maqdah, the brother of a Fatah general, Mounir al-Maqdah, was killed in a strike on a vehicle, the state-run National News Agency reported.

Israeli officials have accused General Mounir al-Maqdah of facilitating the smuggling of weapons into the West Bank. It was not immediately clear what his brother’s role was in the organization.

Earlier this month, another Israeli drone strike hit an SUV on a main road at Sidon, killing a Hamas official identified as Samer al-Haj.

On Tuesday, Hezbollah launched more than 200 projectiles toward Israel, after Israel targeted a Hezbollah weapons depot some 50 miles from the border, a significant increase in the daily skirmishes.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded near-daily strikes for more than 10 months against the backdrop of Israel’s war against Hezbollah’s ally, Hamas, in Gaza.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed the strategic plateau for its security.


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