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Several Hurt as Hezbollah Fires 100 rockets deep into north Israel
Illustrative: A Magen David Adom ambulance. Photo: David King via Wikimedia Commons.
Several people were hurt when Hezbollah launched more than 100 rockets and drones at northern Israel in waves of attacks overnight Saturday and Sunday morning.
Rockets hit the Haifa bayside suburb of Kiryat Bialik and Moreshet, a community in the Lower Galilee, the military said. The IDF’s aerial defense array intercepted some of the projectiles.
The Israel Fire and Rescue Services was operating to put out numerous blazes ignited in the area.
Three people suffered shrapnel wounds when Hezbollah rockets hit several homes in Kiryat Bialik.
The Magen David Adom emergency service medics and paramedics treated and evacuated a 76-year-old man to Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center in moderate condition with a shrapnel wound to the eye, as well as a 70-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl in mild condition with shrapnel wounds.
Maj. Gen. Rafi Milo, head of the IDF Home Front Command, toured the site of the Hezbollah strike in Kiryat Bialik. In addition to the civil protection, medical and firefighting services, Israel Police and the local authority participated in searches of the area.
According to the IDF, 85 rockets were detected following air-raid sirens that sounded between 6:24 and 6:32 a.m. and between 6:52 and 7 a.m. Before that, sirens sounded in the Jezreel Valley at 4:48 and 5:10 a.m., with 20 rockets detected crossing from Lebanon into Israel.
Most of those rockets were intercepted, with the rest striking open areas. No injuries were reported, according to the IDF.
At 1:48 a.m., the IDF said that 10 projectiles were detected crossing from Lebanon into the Jezreel Valley, with most intercepted and a fallen projectile identified in the area.
Magen David Adom said that at 1:20 a.m., it received a report about a 60-year-old man with a minor head injury, likely from a small interception fragment, near a village in the Lower Galilee. He was transported to the Scottish Hospital in Nazareth.
Additionally, several people were lightly injured running to bomb shelters, including a month-old infant, two women in their 30s and men and women in their 70s and 80s. They were evacuated to Emek Medical Center in Afula and the Holy Family (Italian) and English Hospitals in Nazareth.
In total, the IDF said that Hezbollah launched 115 “aerial threats” towards civilians in northern Israel in recent hours.
Hezbollah took responsibility for the overnight and morning waves of attacks, stating that it had sent “dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles” at the Ramat David Airbase southeast of Haifa and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems north of Haifa. It was reportedly the first time since Oct. 8 when the terror group began attacking Israel in support of Hamas that it has used this type of weapon.
The Iranian-backed terror army said that the missiles launched were “in response to the repeated Israeli attacks that targeted various Lebanese regions and led to the fall of many civilian martyrs,” about last week’s series of communication device explosions that killed and wounded thousands of Hezbollah terrorists.
Hezbollah has vowed revenge for the deadly pager and walkie-talkie blasts last week across Lebanon, attributing the attacks to Jerusalem.
A targeted strike by the IDF in Beirut on Friday killed senior Hezbollah terrorist Ibrahim Aqil.
Following Hezbollah’s attack on northern Israel, the IDF said on Sunday morning that it was currently striking terror targets in Lebanon.
“The IDF defensive arrays are deployed in the area, and on high preparedness to thwart threats,” the military said, adding that “IDF strikes will continue and will intensify against the Hezbollah terrorist organization.”
Since Saturday afternoon, Israel has struck 290 targets in Southern Lebanon, including thousands of launcher barrels and additional terrorist infrastructure.
In an additional series of strikes, the IDF said that it struck 110 Hezbollah terror targets, including launchers and terrorist infrastructure.
The IDF also announced changes to the Home Front Command defensive guidelines, which effect “the northern Golan Heights, the Confrontation Line, the southern Golan Heights, Upper Galilee, Central Galilee, Lower Galilee, the Haifa Bay and the Valleys (HaAmakim).”
The updated guidelines prohibit educational activities, limit work activities to those taking place near bomb shelters and limit gatherings and services to up to 10 people outdoors and up to 100 people indoors. Additionally, beaches are closed to the public.
The guidelines are in effect from Sunday at 6 a.m. until Monday at 6 p.m., with the possibility of an extension.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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