Hezbollah has traded near-daily fire with Israel in support of its ally Hamas since October 7 attack.
Beirut:
Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes killed three people Monday in the country’s south, with Hezbollah announcing the death of two of its fighters and a rescue group mourning a paramedic.
Since last week, tensions have soared as Iran and Tehran-backed groups, including Hezbollah, vowed revenge for the killing of Hamas’s political leader in Tehran and Israel’s killing of the Lebanese group’s military chief in Beirut.
Hezbollah has traded near-daily fire with Israel in support of its ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.
The twin killings have raised fears of full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah, which last went to war in the summer of 2006.
Lebanon’s health ministry said an “Israeli enemy strike that targeted a motorbike” in the southern village of Ebba killed one person, wounded another and caused a pregnant woman who was near the site to miscarry due to “shock”.
Earlier, the health ministry said an “enemy raid” near the cemetery in the border village of Mais al-Jabal “killed two people”.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said one of the dead in Mais al-Jabal was a paramedic with the Risala Scouts association, which is affiliated with the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement.
Hezbollah in separate statements announced the death of two fighters, one from Mais al-Jabal.
The Israeli military said the air force “operated in the area of Ebba… in order to strike and eliminate” a Hezbollah operative, who it said was from the group’s elite Radwan unit.
It also said “soldiers identified a terrorist cell operating a drone” in the Mais al-Jabal area, and that air forces “struck and eliminated the terrorists”.
The frontline village is less than two kilometres (1.2 miles) from the border with Israel and has experienced heavy bombardment since the cross-border clashes began, forcing most residents to leave.
Ali Abbas, a Risala Scouts rescue worker, told AFP the paramedic had travelled by motorcycle with another person to inspect the site of an earlier raid when they were hit.
– Medical supplies arrive –
Hezbollah claimed a series of attacks on Israeli military positions on Monday, one with explosive-laden drones that it said was in response to the “assassination” in Mais al-Jabal.
The group had said early Monday it targeted other military sites in northern Israel with “explosive-laden drones” in response to previous Israeli “attacks and assassinations” in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military had said “numerous suspicious aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon” into northern Israel overnight, starting a fire and leaving an officer and a soldier “moderately injured”.
The NNA reported Israeli strikes on other areas of south Lebanon on Monday, while the health ministry said three civilians were taken to hospital after Israeli white phosphorus shelling.
Also Monday, Lebanon received 32 tonnes of emergency medical supplies from the World Health Organization for “treating war wounds” in efforts to increase readiness for “escalation in the Israeli aggression on Lebanon”, a health ministry statement said.
Health Minister Firass Abiad said another supply shipment was due to arrive in the coming days, according to the statement.
Lebanon is ill-prepared for war, with public services including the health sector hit hard by a more than four-year-long economic crisis that has also pushed many medical professionals to emigrate.
Amid rising tensions, Israeli jets broke the sound barrier twice in the skies over Beirut around noon, according to the NNA, sparking worry in the Lebanese capital.
The cross-border violence since October has killed at least 550 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including at least 116 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, including the annexed Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 25 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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