Important Takeaways:

• Hezbollah pelted Haifa with rockets on Tuesday in the heaviest attack yet on the northern Israeli port city, as the Lebanese terror group insisted its military capabilities “were fine” despites weeks of devastating IDF strikes.
• More than 100 rockets were fired at the city within half an hour around midday.
• Most of the rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome system, although some got through, exploding in the Haifa suburbs of Kiryat Yam and Kiryat Motzkin, security services said.
• The blue skies above the city were filled with white trails of the interceptor rockets rising to meet the incoming barrages, and explosions mushroomed above Haifa as sirens wailed and thousands of Israelis ran for bomb shelters.
• The salvos came as the IDF announced that it was carrying out strikes against Hezbollah targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
• The large-scale attack also came moments after Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem, one of the last surviving members of the group’s top leadership, insisted that Hezbollah’s military capabilities were intact, that it had increased its rocket fire on Israel, and that it was itching for “clashes” with Israeli troops in Lebanon.
• He said Hezbollah’s top leadership was directing the war and that the commanders killed by Israel had been replaced. “We have no vacant posts,” he added.
• Qassem also said that Hezbollah supports efforts to reach a ceasefire for Lebanon, but for the first time omitted any mention of a Gaza truce deal as a precondition to halting his group’s fire on Israel.
• “In any case, after the issue of a ceasefire takes shape, and once diplomacy can achieve it, all of the other details can be discussed and decisions can be made,” he said. “If the enemy (Israel) continues its war, then the battlefield will decide.”

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