One killed in Israeli strike on east Lebanon
Lebanese soldiers cordon off the site of a strike in Suwairi, eastern Lebanon — a security source blamed the strike on ‘Israeli aircraft’ and said the Syrian driver was killed
Bekaa Valley – An Israeli strike on a car near the Syrian border killed a man Sunday, a security source said, after overnight fire wounded four people in Lebanon’s east, a second security official said.
Israel and Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group allied to Hamas, have been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire since the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas began in October.
But fears have surged of an all-out conflict in recent weeks, with Israel launching air strikes deeper into eastern Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah strongholds in the Bekaa Valley area several times.
“Israeli aircraft targeted a vehicle in… Suwairi, killing its Syrian driver,” a security source told AFP, requesting anonymity because of security concerns.
Earlier on Sunday, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency had said a strike on a vehicle in Suwairi, in Lebanon’s east, injured the driver, before reporting that he had been killed.
The NNA said he had been delivering food in a car that belonged to a supermarket owner.
The blue vehicle was torn to pieces and a streak of blood stained the ground nearby.
Overnight Saturday, Israeli jets struck a Hezbollah centre that had been deserted for some time, the second security source told AFP. Four residents in nearby buildings had been wounded by the strikes, the source added.
The strike at al-Osseira, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the Israeli-Lebanese border, ended a period of relative calm that had lasted around 10 days.
The Israeli military said in a statement that its fighter jets “struck a Hezbollah manufacturing site containing weapons in the area of Baalbek”, referring to the main city in the Bekaa Valley.
The NNA had earlier reported three people injured in the Israeli strikes.
Later, Hezbollah said it fired “more than 60 Katyusha-type rockets” at two Israeli military positions in the occupied Golan Heights in response to the Israeli strikes.
The Israeli military also said “approximately 50 launches were identified from Lebanon toward northern Israel. A number of launches were intercepted while the rest fell in open areas”.
Hezbollah began launching near-daily attacks against Israel on October 8 in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas, whose attack on Israel triggered the war in Gaza.
Hezbollah said on Saturday it had carried out several more strikes.
It says it will only end its attacks on Israel if there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned in February that a possible truce in Gaza would not affect Israel’s “objective” of pushing Hezbollah back from its northern border, by force or diplomacy.
At least 324 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah fighters but including more than 50 civilians, according to an AFP count.
At least 10 soldiers and seven civilians have been killed in northern Israel, according to the military.
The exchanges of fire, initially confined to areas close to the border, have displaced tens of thousands in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.