(Beirut) A civilian was killed Tuesday in an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon, state media announced the day after the death of three Hezbollah fighters in a raid on the east of the country.
Violence between the Israeli army and Hezbollah has increased in intensity in recent days, with the pro-Iranian formation announcing on Monday that it had shot down an Israeli Hermes 900 drone.
According to the National News Agency, a civilian was “seriously injured in a drone strike” on Naqoura, a border town, before dying.
The South Lebanon Water Office announced the “martyr death” of one of its officials who “was fulfilling his duty to guarantee the water supply” of the region.
The strike came a day after nighttime raids by Israeli aircraft on eastern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold far from the border.
Hezbollah announced on Tuesday that it had “launched dozens of Katyusha rockets” at an Israeli army position in the occupied Golan Heights to respond to these raids.
The Islamist group announced on Tuesday the death of three of its fighters, without specifying the circumstances of their death. A source close to Hezbollah confirmed that they were killed in the nighttime strikes.
The Israeli army for its part indicated that “combat aircraft had struck a military compound of Hezbollah unit 4400, responsible for logistical reinforcement […] and the smuggling of weapons to and from Lebanon”.
It said it had targeted two sites in the Baalbeck sector, a Hezbollah stronghold near the Syrian border.
An AFP correspondent reported that a building was completely destroyed in the Hermel region, about 140 km from the Lebanese-Israeli border.
For his part, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), Rami Abdel Rahmane, told AFP that the strikes had left six dead, three Hezbollah fighters and three Syrians working for training. Lebanese.
The NGO, based in the United Kingdom but which has a vast network of sources in the war-torn country, said that one of the strikes targeted “a convoy of tankers and heavy goods vehicles located on the border between Lebanon and Syria.”
The Shiite movement is heavily deployed on both sides of the eastern border between Lebanon and Syria, where it supports the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas on October 7, Hezbollah has regularly exchanged fire with the Israeli army, in support of its Palestinian ally.
More than eight months of violence have left at least 463 dead in Lebanon, including around 90 civilians and 302 Hezbollah fighters, according to an AFP count.
On the Israeli side, at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians were killed, according to the authorities.
