Hezbollah leader: Attack on Israel went as planned, further strikes possible

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Sunday that his group would assess the impact of its rockets and drones on Israeli military targets earlier in the day before determining whether to carry out further attacks to avenge a killed commander, Reuters reported.

The leader of the Lebanese group said in a televised address that they had succeeded in carrying out the attack "as planned", denying statements by the Israeli military that its preemptive strikes had stopped a wider attack.

Nasrallah, speaking about twelve hours after the most intense exchange of fire between Hezbollah and Israel since hostilities erupted parallel to the war in Gaza, said the group deliberately refrained from targeting civilians or public infrastructure, including Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.

He said the group's main target was a military intelligence base about 110 km inside Israeli territory - the deepest attack so far, just 1.5 km north of Tel Aviv.

Nasrallah said the group would assess the results of the operation, retaliation for the Israeli killing of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in a Beirut suburb last month.

"If the result is not sufficient, then we retain the right to respond a second time," Nasrallah said.

Hezbollah fighters successfully launched more than 300 Katyusha rockets to distract Israeli Iron Dome defenses before sending attack drones, he said.

Among them were drones launched from the eastern Bekaa Valley, for the first time, he said. None of the drones or rocket launchers were damaged in Israel's preemptive strikes, he said.

Nasrallah said Hezbollah had not planned a larger attack, denying statements by the Israeli military that the group intended to fire thousands of projectiles. But he acknowledged that the operation was delayed for several reasons, including what he called the "mobilization" of the Israeli and American military in the region.