Hezbollah will pay a high price for joining Hamas in attacking Israel on Oct. 7, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi warned as he toured the northern border amid non-stop rocket fire from Lebanon on Tuesday.
"All the forces are stationed here to locate the enemy, to attack him," Halevi said to soldiers and members of the emergency squad in Moshav Shtula.
"We are not waiting for anything, we are saying the following – Hezbollah decided on the evening of Oct. 7 that it is joining and it has to pay a very big price for it."
Hezbollah began its near-daily attacks against Israeli targets on Oct. 8, which caused a broad-scale evacuation of some 80,000 residents of the border communities.
"In order to bring the people back here with security and quality of life, the state will know how to make every effort," Halevi said.
The cross-border skirmishes between the Lebanese terror group and Israel reached another boiling point on Monday, after Hezbollah attempted to down an Israeli drone some 50 km (30 miles) inside Israeli territory. Israel retaliated by attacking Hezbollah targets around 100 km (60 miles) from the border.
Hezbollah then fired some 60 rockets at an Israeli military base located on the Golan Heights, before launching another barrage of dozens of rockets at the strategically important aerial control base on Mount Meron on Tuesday morning.
The Meron base has become Hezbollah's favorite target to retaliate after serious Israeli strikes and was attacked last time in January after Israel targeted a senior commander of Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force.
The IDF later confirmed that an anti-tank missile hit the area of the base but that its functions were not impacted by it.
Hezbollah later claimed to have fired some 20 rockets at the headquarters of the IDF's 146th Division in the Western Galilee.
While Tuesday's attacks didn't cause serious damage or injuries, Israelis filmed rockets exploding on Highway 89 in the Western Galilee.
The IDF's Home Front Command instructs civilians in the case of a rocket alarm siren to stop their cars on the side of the road, exit, and take shelter some distance away from cars that could explode following a rocket impact.
The attacks continued on Wednesday, with several volleys being launched at the city of Kiryat Shmona, where a house was hit directly. Army Radio reported that no one was injured in the incident.
The Hamas branch in Lebanon claimed responsibility for one of the rocket barrages.
In response to Hezbollah's actions, the IDF carried out several waves of attacks against Hezbollah targets across southern Lebanon, including in Ramiyah, Khirbet Salem, Ayta al-Sha'ab, Beit Lif, and more.
Among the destroyed targets were weapons warehouses and production facilities, infrastructure, and a terror squad near Ayta al-Sha'ab.
Republished with permission from All Israel News.