Hezbollah targets Israel satellite station

Fires long-range rockets deep inside Jewish state

Hezbollah on Monday fired long-range rockets at Israeli military and communications facilities deep inside Israel, including a satellite communications station in the Elah Valley and a military base near Tel Aviv.

In posts on Telegram, the group explained that its fighters struck a communications station belonging to Israel's cyber and signals command in the Elah Valley, about 160 km from the Lebanese border, using "advanced rockets."

The Elah Valley site hosts one of Israel's oldest satellite relay stations, built in the early 1970s, with dozens of large antennas used for satellite communications and data transmission, according to Israeli media.

Hezbollah also fired rockets at the Home Front Command headquarters southeast of Tel Aviv, about 135 km from Lebanon, and reported attacks on Israeli troop concentrations near Mays Al-Jabal and Wadi Hunin. The group also struck Israeli vehicles with guided missiles as Israeli forces attempted to advance along the southern Lebanon front.

Meanwhile, Israel carried out heavy strikes on a financial firm linked to Hezbollah, after Lebanon's president accused the group seeking the country's collapse and dragging it to war.

Lebanese authorities said Monday that Israel's attacks since March 2 have killed at least 486 people and wounded at least 1,313.

Israel, which kept up attacks against Hezbollah even before the war despite a 2024 ceasefire, carried out intensified strikes last week across Lebanon and sent ground troops into border areas.

It said it killed the head of Hezbollah's Nasr unit operating in part of southern Lebanon, Abu Hussein Ragheb, on Monday.

Earlier, the Israeli military struck branches of Al-Qard al-Hassan, a US-sanctioned financial firm mainly operating in Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon's south, east and Beirut's southern suburbs, after issuing evacuation warnings, according to Lebanese state media and AFP correspondents.

The Israeli army said it was "striking Hezbollah infrastructure" in the southern suburbs.

An AFP photographer in the area witnessed a massive explosion, while an armed Hezbollah member fired warning shots into the air to evacuate residents from their homes.

The strikes killed one person, the Lebanese health ministry said in a preliminary toll.

The Israeli army renewed previous orders for people in the area to leave.

Al-Qard al-Hassan is a lifeline for mainly Shia communities battling a years-long financial crisis in Lebanon that has locked people out of their bank deposits.

It says it has more than 30 branches nationwide, mainly in Hezbollah bastions such as Beirut's southern suburbs, but also in central Beirut and other major cities.

In Lebanon's southern city of Sidon, an area outside of Hezbollah's traditional sphere of influence, an AFP correspondent saw ambulances and civil defence vehicles gather around a branch of Al-Qard al-Hassan.

Israel also bombed the firm's branches during its last war with Hezbollah in 2024, including the one in Sidon.