Against the backdrop of a feared regional escalation between Lebanon and Israel, the pro-Iranian Hezbollah says it has launched an “explosive drone” in the direction of the neighboring country. Its fighters launched an “air attack with a drone loaded with explosives” on an Israeli army position in the town of Beit Hillel, the militia said on Sunday in online networks. This was “retaliation” for an Israeli attack the day before.
Hezbollah added a new video to the statement that allegedly shows the coordinates of strategic positions in Israel within rocket range. Hezbollah did not disclose which locations these were. Five days earlier, Hezbollah had already released a similar video and threatened Israel with a large-scale offensive: According to the militia, it showed drone footage of important military and energy infrastructure in Israel’s third-largest city, Haifa.
The Israeli army, for its part, said that an “enemy drone launched from Lebanon” had entered northern Israel. However, it was intercepted and crashed in the Beit Hillel region. No one was injured.
On Saturday, Lebanese security sources said that a leader of the Islamist group Jamaa Islamiya, which is allied with the radical Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip, had been killed in an Israeli attack on his vehicle in the town of Chiara in the Bekaa Valley. The group itself announced on Saturday the death of one of its commanders, Ajman Ghotmeh, “in a treacherous Zionist attack.”
The Israeli army later confirmed that it had carried out the attack and “eliminated” the official. It said Ghotmeh was responsible for supplying the armed Fajr wing of Jamaa Islamiya and Hamas with weapons in the area.
Since the war between Israel and Hamas began more than eight months ago, Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran and allied with Hamas, has been firing rockets and drones at Israel. Tens of thousands of people in northern Israel have since been forced to flee their homes. Israel is responding to the shelling with increased attacks on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon.
According to a count by the AFP news agency, at least 480 people have been killed since October, most of them militants. But 93 civilians were also among those killed since then. According to Israeli sources, at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians were killed on the Israeli side of the border.