Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement says it has launched dozens of missiles targeting an Israeli surveillance base in retaliation for the regime’s assassination of the Hamas deputy in Beirut.

“At 08:10 AM on Saturday, January 6, 2024, the fighters of the Islamic Resistance targeted the Meron Aerial Surveillance Base with 62 missiles of various types, inflicting direct and confirmed hits,” Hezbollah said in a statement.

The movement described the operation “as a preliminary response” to the Israeli assassination of “great leader Sheikh Saleh al-Arouri and his martyr brothers” in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh.

According to the statement, the base is the sole center for administration, surveillance, and air control in the northern occupied territories.

“It is one of two principal bases in the entire usurping entity, the other being Mitzpe Ramon in the south,” it said.

Earlier, sirens were sounded in northern Israeli cities, warning residents of incoming rockets, media reports said Saturday.

The cities of Shtula, Abirim, Netu’a, Karmiel, Safed were among 94 settlements in Galilee and the occupied Golan Heights put on alert Saturday, they said.

The southern Lebanese border has seen regular exchanges of fire, mainly between Israeli forces and Hezbollah since Tel Aviv launched its ferocious invasion of Gaza in early October.

Arouri's assassination on Tuesday in southern Beirut, which a US defense official has told AFP was carried out by Israel, has raised fears of further escalation.

The Israeli military said it had identified around 40 rocket launches from Lebanese territory on Saturday morning.

Air raid sirens went off in towns and cities across northern Israel, later also blaring in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

In a speech Friday, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had warned Israel that the movement would respond swiftly "on the battlefield" to Arouri's assassination.

Nearly three months of cross-border fire have killed 175 people in Lebanon, including three journalists.  

In northern Israel, at least 13 Israelis including nine soldiers have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.