“We are getting very close to the moment of deciding to change the rules of the game against Hezbollah and Lebanon,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on X. “In an all-out war, Hezbollah will be destroyed, and Lebanon severely beaten,” he added.
Parts of the Hezbollah footage, filmed in the daytime, claimed to show Krayot, a cluster of “highly populated” residential cities north of the Israeli city of Haifa and 28 km (17 miles) south of the Lebanese border, along with malls and high rises.
Other parts claimed to show a military complex near Haifa belonging to Israeli weapons manufacturer Rafael – including Iron Dome batteries, missile storage sites and radar sites – and military boats, ships and oil storage depots in the port of Haifa.
The publication of the video follows months of intensifying cross-border attacks between Hezbollah and Israel in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks, and the ensuing military campaign by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza.
In his response, Katz also underlined the global repercussions of any potential attack on Haifa. “(Hezbollah’s secretary-general Hassan) Nasrallah is bragging today that he photographed the ports of Haifa, which are operated by huge international companies from China and India, and threatening to damage them,” he said.
The US and its allies have for months warned Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Islamist movement with one of the most powerful paramilitary forces in the Middle East, against escalating the conflict in Israel. Tensions have nevertheless been rising in recent weeks.
CNN analysis has geolocated the video to a number of locations around Haifa. Those locations include a number of sensitive areas, including at least two military installations: a base in northern Haifa and the port of Haifa. The drone also flew over the oil tanks that sit north of Haifa, the Haifa airport and several residential areas.
CNN also analyzed the shadows in the videos, which indicate the drone mission over Haifa lasted multiple hours, or took place over multiple days. The analysis shows parts of the video have been sped up.
Weapons expert Wim Zwijnenburg, project leader for humanitarian disarmament at the Dutch peace organization PAX, told CNN that a drone visible in the footage appears to be “an Iranian-origin model of a Qasaf-2k, possibly manufactured locally.” READ MORE
