Hezbollah Focuses on Targeting Israeli Gas Fields
The Israeli army announces it has intercepted a drone before it reached the Karish gas field.
The Israeli army announced on Saturday that it had intercepted a drone launched from Lebanon towards Israeli economic waters. Hebrew media indicated that the drone was headed for the Karish gas field, showing Hezbollah‘s focus on targeting Israel’s economic and energy assets.
In a brief statement posted on the platform “X,” the army said: “Recently, an Israeli navy missile ship, in cooperation with the air force, successfully intercepted a drone that had traveled from Lebanon into Israeli economic waters.”
The Israeli army radio reported that there are estimates within the Israeli military institutions that the drone “was headed for the ‘Karis’ gas field” in the Mediterranean, in an attack that is not new against Israeli oil and gas fields.
While the newspaper “Yediot Aharonot” stated that it was unclear whether the drone’s target was to photograph the gas platform or to attack it, Channel 13 speculated that the launch was “for the purpose of filming.”
Since the beginning of the war on Gaza, Israel has intensified its security measures around the natural gas platform located 90 kilometers north of Haifa, with a missile ship continuously patrolling near the platform, in addition to other warships in the area, according to the Hebrew newspaper.
On Wednesday, Hezbollah released footage it claimed showed the Israeli airbase at “Ramat David” which “includes fighters, combat helicopters, transport and rescue helicopters, maritime reconnaissance helicopters, and offensive electronic warfare systems,” captured by the “Hodhod” drone, according to the information published by the party at that time.
On July 7, the party broadcast a video showing “Israeli intelligence bases, command centers, and camps in the occupied Syrian Golan,” noting that these images were “returned by Hezbollah‘s air force planes” at the time, after announcing on June 18 that it had carried out the first “Hodhod” operation, sending a drone that returned with “sensitive” images from northern Israel, specifically Haifa port.
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Iran-backed group, warned in his latest speech that the party has the capabilities to target sensitive sites in Israel, including electrical grids and gas and oil production facilities.
Since October 8, 2023, Lebanese and Palestinian factions in Lebanon, mainly Hezbollah, have been exchanging daily shelling with the Israeli army across the “Blue Line,” resulting in hundreds of deaths and injuries, mostly on the Lebanese side.
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These factions link the cessation of the shelling to the end of the war Israel is waging, with full American support, on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, which has resulted in over 129,000 Palestinian casualties, mostly children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.
In recent weeks, the escalation between Tel Aviv and Hezbollah has raised concerns about the potential for a large-scale war, particularly with the Israeli army announcing the approval of operational plans for a “wide attack” on Lebanon.
