# Hezbollah says it fired 340 missiles at Israel in latest escalation
Event date: 2024-11-24
Hezbollah says it launched more than 300 missiles and rockets at Israel, including what it described as a first strike on the Ashdod naval base, in one of the heaviest cross-border barrages of the war.
Al Jazeera reported that Hezbollah claimed it had targeted the base in southern Israel and also launched an attack against a military target in Tel Aviv using advanced missiles and strike drones. Israeli air defenses intercepted some of the projectiles, while Israeli military radio later said 340 missiles had been launched from Lebanon. Medical agencies said at least 11 people were wounded, including one in serious condition.
The barrage came after Israel killed at least 29 people in a strike in central Beirut the previous day, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. That attack deepened the cycle of retaliation between Israel and Hezbollah, which has said its actions are linked to the war in Gaza and pressure on Israel to stop fighting there.
The wider conflict has steadily escalated since the start of Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Al Jazeera said Israel expanded air attacks on September 23 and sent ground troops south a week later. Since then, both sides have sustained heavy losses and large-scale displacement.
The report also shows the widening human cost. Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister condemned the Beirut strike as a blow to ceasefire efforts, while the Lebanese army said one of its posts in southern Lebanon was hit and that a soldier was killed. Israel has previously said attacks on Lebanese troops were accidental and that the army is not a target.
The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people in Lebanon, according to the report, and tens of thousands in Israel’s north. The strategic picture is therefore not just one of missile exchanges but of a broader campaign reshaping daily life on both sides of the border.
For Hezbollah, the claimed Ashdod strike is important because it signals an effort to show reach deeper into Israel than before. For Israel, the barrage is another reminder that the northern front is no longer a contained exchange of fire but a central theater in a regional war.
Whether every claimed target was hit is still unclear. But the scale of the volley, the injuries it caused and the political messaging around it all point in the same direction: neither side is backing away, and the conflict is expanding in both intensity and symbolic weight.
