Israel says struck Hezbollah missile factory in Lebanon

Israel said it carried out strikes on Thursday on sites used by Hezbollah to manufacture and store missiles in Lebanon, where Israel has launched multiple attacks despite a November ceasefire.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said targets included “Hezbollah’s biggest precision missile manufacturing site,” and the military said it had hit “infrastructure that was used for producing and storing strategic weapons” in south Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley.

“Any attempt by the terrorist organization to recover, re-establish or threaten will be met with relentless intensity,” he vowed.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency also reported strikes in the Bekaa and the south.

Both Katz and the Israeli military accused Hezbollah of attempting to rebuild its military infrastructure and demanded that the Lebanese army move to disarm the militant group.

“Among the targets struck were explosive manufacturing sites, which were used to develop Hezbollah’s weaponry, as well as an underground site for the production and storage of strategic weapons,” the military said.

“The Hezbollah terrorist organization tried to rehabilitate the sites and capabilities, actions that constitute a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon,” it alleged.

Earlier, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun had said that his country was determined to disarm Hezbollah, a step it has come under heavy US pressure to take, despite the group’s protests that doing so would serve Israeli goals.

Hezbollah and Israel fought a two-month war last year that left the militant group badly weakened, though it retains part of its arsenal.