A Hezbollah explosive drone struck the parking lot of the Rosh Hanikra grottoes site near the Lebanese border on Thursday, wounding three Israeli civilians, the IDF said.
Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya said the wounded were evacuated from the site, including one person in critical condition, another in serious condition and a third who was lightly hurt. The wounded included workers carrying out renovations near the popular tourist site, which is currently closed.
The IDF said the drone had been launched by Hezbollah and fell inside Israeli territory, calling the incident “a blatant violation of the ceasefire understandings.”
The strike occurred shortly before noon, without sirens sounding in Rosh Hanikra. In the hour before the attack, sirens had sounded in Misgav Am and the Mevo’ot Hermon Regional Council area following the identification of suspected aerial targets.
Earlier Thursday, the IDF carried out strikes in Lebanon after its Arabic-language spokesman, Col. Avichay Adraee, issued evacuation warnings for several villages in the south of the country.
The escalation came hours before a planned meeting in Washington between Israeli and Lebanese representatives, their third such meeting. Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri warned in comments to Lebanon’s Ad-Diyar newspaper that “the negotiations begin today at 4 p.m., and if a real ceasefire is not reached, everything will collapse.”
Berri said Lebanon would accept nothing less than an Israeli military withdrawal, followed by reconstruction, deployment of the Lebanese army and the return of displaced residents. He also said, regarding the possibility of a meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, that the information he had indicated the issue was “not on President Aoun’s agenda.”
Metula Mayor David Azoulay told ynet that Israel must act on both military and diplomatic tracks.
“Militarily, we need to continue, and the air force needs to crush every place where there is a Hezbollah operative or weapons, anywhere in Lebanon,” he said. “At the same time, there needs to be a diplomatic move. You can’t reach every Hezbollah house, so dismantling Hezbollah will be done through an agreement by the Lebanese government.”
Azoulay said the current situation in the north was untenable, with the IDF continuing military action while residents await a diplomatic breakthrough.
“This is an impossible situation,” he said. “Shavuot is next week, and it’s Metula’s holiday. We are planning everything, and now, a week before, we don’t know if it will happen. Last Saturday there was a drone that didn’t explode. The one who filmed it was a security camera of a contractor building a new neighborhood in Metula. What did he do? He took his equipment and left. We can’t maintain any kind of routine. This is worse than October 6, 2023.”
Azoulay said IDF soldiers operating in Lebanon were doing vital work, but were exposed to constant danger. He also criticized Home Front Command alert classifications in the north, saying decisions over whether communities are marked green, yellow or orange were political rather than professional.
“They tell me, ‘If we mark you orange, it will signal a victory for Hezbollah,’” he said. “I want to protect civilians.”
First published: 11:46, 05.14.26