BEIRUT: Six Hezbollah fighters were killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday, a Lebanese security source said, as the group claimed attacks on northern Israel and the breaching of the sound barrier over Beirut by Israeli warplanes.
Since the Palestinian militant group's Oct. 7 attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war, Hezbollah has exchanged fire with Israel almost daily in support of its ally Hamas.
Tensions have risen in the past week as Iran and its allies vow to avenge the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, in Tehran, and after an Israeli attack killed Fouad Shokr, a top Hezbollah military commander, in the southern suburbs of Beirut. , Increased.
The Ministry of Health of Lebanon announced that five people were killed in an “attack by Israeli enemies on a house in the city of Mifadon” near the city of Nabatieh in the south of the country, and another attack by Israel in the “Adisa” area killed one person.
A security source told AFP that those killed in both locations were “Hezbollah fighters” and asked not to be named because the matter was sensitive.
Hezbollah announced the death of five fighters without mentioning the location.
The Israeli military said the regime's air force struck “a Hezbollah military building” in the Nabatieh region that was being used “to carry out terrorist attacks” against Israel.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for several attacks on Israeli positions on Tuesday, including one with “explosive-laden drones” that targeted a garrison north of the coastal city of Acre.
The Israeli military said that “a number of hostile drones (UAVs) were detected crossing over Lebanon,” adding that “several civilians were injured south of Nahariya” near Acre.
It later announced that initial investigations indicated that one of its interceptor missiles “missed its target and hit the ground, injuring several civilians,” adding that “the incident is under investigation.”
Israel's Magen David Adom Emergency Service said rescuers were treating a 30-year-old man in critical condition and a 30-year-old woman in mild to moderate condition with shrapnel injuries.
Hezbollah said this drone strike was in response to Monday's airstrike on the village of Abba in the south of the country, which, according to the Israeli army, targeted one of the commanders of the group's elite Rezvan forces.
According to Tasnim International Group, citing AFP, a security source and AFP reporters said that the Israeli army plane, which was flying at a low altitude, hit the sound barrier on Tuesday before the speech of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah. It broke over Beirut.
Nasrallah gave a televised speech a week after Shakar, whom Israel describes as the group's “top military commander” and Nasrallah's “right-hand man,” was killed.
According to a report by AFP, cross-border violence has killed around 556 people in Lebanon since October, most of them fighters, but at least 116 civilians were among them.
According to the army statistics, 22 soldiers and 25 civilians have been killed on the Israeli side, including in the Golan Heights.
Diplomatic efforts to prevent a regional conflagration and full-scale conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which last went to war in the summer of 2006, have been overstretched.
