Hezbollah fired approximately 30 rockets at the Haifa Bay area on Tuesday, followed by a second barrage of roughly 20 rockets aimed at northern Israel. [1] The Israeli military said most were intercepted by air defenses. No injuries or impacts in residential areas were reported. [2]

The timing matters. Trump's five-day pause, announced March 22, covers only U.S. strikes against Iranian power plants. It says nothing about Hezbollah's operations from Lebanon, and nothing about Israeli strikes on Iranian targets. The war's other fronts remain fully active. [3]

Haifa Bay has become a recurring target. The city's petrochemical complex and oil refinery make it strategically valuable, and Hezbollah has struck the area multiple times since the conflict expanded northward. Tuesday's barrage was the largest single rocket attack on Haifa in over a week. [4]

Israel's air defenses performed as designed. But each barrage tests the interception rate at scale, and the trajectory of these attacks — growing in volume, reaching deeper into Israeli territory — suggests Hezbollah is probing capacity rather than pausing alongside its patron.

-- YOSEF STERN, Jerusalem