Northern Israel has been plunged into what residents are calling “rocket hell” after Hezbollah unleashed one of its fiercest barrages of the war, pounding towns and an IDF base where dozens of officers were gathered for a high‑level briefing, military and medical sources say.

Sirens screamed across Kiryat Shmona, Metula and the Upper Galilee as launch signatures lit up over southern Lebanon. Within minutes, heavy rockets and guided missiles were slamming into hillsides, roads and military positions. Phone videos show streaks of fire arcing south, followed by rolling explosions and rising columns of smoke along the border ridge.

The worst hit, officials admit privately, was an IDF command compound outside a northern town, where senior officers and reservist commanders were meeting to coordinate ground operations. At least one precision‑guided missile struck inside the perimeter, tearing through a tented assembly area and nearby vehicles. Initial casualty figures speak of dozens of dead and wounded, making it one of the single bloodiest blows to Israeli forces so far.

Magen David Adom medics describe a scene of chaos: mangled armoured jeeps, shattered prefabs, soldiers dragging comrades to improvised triage points under continuing rocket fire. Helicopters shuttled the worst cases to hospitals in Safed and Haifa as artillery thundered back toward Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s media arm is celebrating what it calls a “direct hit on the Zionist command brain”, vowing further salvos. The IDF promises a “crushing response,” but tonight, for communities under the barrage, the dominant feeling is raw shock — that even rear‑area gatherings once seen as safe have now moved to the front line of the war.