BEIRUT: Six Hezbollah fighters were killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday, a Lebanese security source said, with the group saying it would attack northern Israel and blast low-flying Israeli warplanes through the sound barrier over Beirut.
Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israel on an almost daily basis in support of its ally Hamas since an October 7 attack by Palestinian militants on Israel sparked the Gaza war.
Tensions rose last week as Iran and its allies vowed revenge for the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, blamed on Israel, and after an Israeli strike killed Hezbollah's top military commander Fuad Shukr in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Lebanon's health ministry said an “Israeli hostile airstrike on a house in the town of Maifadoun,” near the southern city of Nabataiah, killed five people, while another Israeli strike in the Adaiseh district killed one person.
The dead in both places were “Hizbullah militants”, a security source told AFP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case.
Hezbollah announced the death of five fighters without specifying where they died.
The Israeli military said its air force “struck a Hezbollah military structure” in the Nabatiya area that was used “to promote terrorist attacks” against Israel.
Hezbollah claimed several attacks on Israeli positions on Tuesday, including using “explosive-laden drones” targeting barracks north of the coastal city of Acre.
The Israeli military said “a number of enemy drones (UAVs) were identified crossing Lebanon,” adding that “several civilians were injured south of Nagariya,” near Acre.
It later said that an initial investigation showed that one of its interceptor missiles “missed its target and fell to the ground, injuring several civilians,” adding that “the incident is under review.”
Israel's Magen David Adam Ambulance Service said paramedics were treating “a 30-year-old man in critical condition and a 30-year-old woman in mild to moderate condition with shrapnel wounds.”
Hezbollah said the drone attack was in response to an airstrike on the southern village of Ebba on Monday, which the Israeli military said targeted the commander of the group's elite Radwan unit.
A low-flying Israeli warplane breached the sound barrier over Beirut on Tuesday ahead of a speech by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, Lebanon's National News Agency, a security source and AFP reporters said.
Nasrallah made the televised address a week after the killing of Shukr, whom Israel described as the group's “highest-ranking military commander” and Nasrallah's “right-hand man.”
According to AFP, cross-border violence has killed some 556 people in Lebanon since October, mostly militants but also at least 116 civilians.
According to the army, 22 soldiers and 25 civilians were killed on the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights.
Diplomatic efforts have increased to prevent a regional conflagration and full-scale conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which last went to war in the summer of 2006.
