Videos emerged Thursday on social media appearing to show Israeli troops firing across the border into Lebanon using medieval weapons amid Israel’s ongoing conflict with Hezbollah.
A video shared by the Times of Israel military correspondent Emanuel Fabian appeared to show Israeli artillery officers standing sentinel as a trebuchet launched a fiery missile across what appeared to be a border wall.
“Footage circulating on social media shows Israeli soldiers using a trebuchet to launch incendiaries at Lebanon,” ran Fabian’s caption.
Footage circulating on social media shows Israeli soldiers using a trebuchet to launch incendiaries at Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/PYMyCZcOWM
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) June 13, 2024
Another appeared to show an Israeli soldier taking aim and shooting a flaming arrow. “Full medieval” was its pithy caption.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the trebuchet was “a local initiative and not a tool that is widely used,” The Telegraph reported.
The IDF reserve forces were responsible for the use of the trebuchet, Israel Hayom, a local outlet, reported. They used the artillery to burn the dense vegetation near the IDF posts on the northern border with Lebanon in an apparent bid to prevent Hezbollah fighters from hiding there, according to the outlet.
Full medieval https://t.co/OCtk8hMKp1 pic.twitter.com/Bf67TSQaAe
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) June 13, 2024
The IDF’s apparent use of the trebuchet elicited various reactions.
“A trebuchet in 2024. What’s going on here?” Journalist Ian Miles Cheong remarked.
“That’s some bored sappers getting inventive,” another posted.
“Are they fighting Hezbollah or King Ashurbanipal’s Assyrians?” asked another.
A trebuchet is a projectile weapon that uses a long arm and the principles of leverage to launch projectiles. Debuting in China in the 5th and 3rd centuries BCE, it remained a siege weapon of choice in ancient and medieval warfare for centuries afterward. (RELATED: ‘It’s A Dream’: Archaeologists Discover 1,900-Year-Old Roman Swords In Excellent Condition)
The trebuchet was used in Europe until about 400 years ago, according to Israel Hayom.
The terror group Hezbollah launched no fewer than 160 projectiles from southern Lebanon into northern Israel Wednesday as Israel was marking Shavuot, or Feast of Weeks, according to the IDF. While the IDF said it intercepted some of the missiles, others landed, causing fires, according to the updates.
A video of one such incident showed the skies above some Israelis celebrating Shavuot lit up with what appeared to be interceptor missiles aimed at the enemy rockets. People could be seen seizing their children and vacating the venue in an apparent dash for shelter.
The exchange of missiles and resulting fires on the ground continued Wednesday, the IDF said.
“Fighter jets of the Air Force attacked terrorist infrastructures of the Hezbollah terrorist organization in the area of Deir Sirin in southern Lebanon,” the IDF announced Wednesday with accompanying footage of aerial bombing. The fighter jets hit three targets, the statement revealed.
The IDF also announced Wednesday that it had eliminated Sami Taleb Abdullah, the commander of the Nasr Unit in the Hezbollah terrorist organization, and three other Hezbollah fighters during a Tuesday airstrike on a Hezbollah command and control center in the area of Jouaiyya in southern Lebanon.
