Israel attacks weapons depot in eastern Lebanon in response to killing of soldier, says source close to Hezbollah – Firstpost

Israel attacked Hezbollah weapons depots deep in eastern Lebanon on Monday, a source close to the group said. AFPafter an Israeli soldier was killed in ten months of cross-border clashes between Hezbollah and Israel

The source close to the Iran-backed Hezbollah said: “The Israeli attacks in the (eastern) Bekaa region targeted Hezbollah weapons depots.” Due to the sensitivity of the matter, she requested anonymity.

The official Lebanese news agency NNA reported that “hostile Israeli attacks” took place in three locations in eastern Lebanon this evening.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said that “eight people were injured in the attacks in eastern Lebanon, including six Lebanese citizens, a five-year-old and a fifteen-year-old Syrian girl.”

The Shiite movement has been exchanging fire with Israel in support of its ally Hamas since the militant Palestinian group's attack on Israel on October 7 sparked the Gaza war.

The violence has been largely confined to the Lebanese-Israeli border area, although Israel has repeatedly attacked the country's eastern Bekaa Valley, where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

Fears of further escalation grew after Hezbollah and Iran vowed a response after an Israeli attack on Beirut killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr last month, just hours after Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an attack in Tehran blamed on Israel.

Fallen in battle

On Monday, the Israeli military said a member of its Bedouin tracking unit had been “killed in fighting in northern Israel.”

Meanwhile, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported that one person was killed near the coastal city of Tyre “when an Israeli enemy drone attack targeted a car.”

Hezbollah said two of its fighters had been “martyred.” The Lebanese Health Ministry had previously reported that two people had been killed in an Israeli attack in the border village of Houla.

The Israeli military said its air force had attacked “Hezbollah terrorists” in the Houla region and “Hezbollah military structures” elsewhere in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah had said it was responding to an Israeli “attack and assassination attempt” in the Tyre region of southern Lebanon. There, the Israeli army said on Saturday that its aircraft had “eliminated” a Hezbollah “commander” of the elite Radwan force.

The group said it had launched a “simultaneous airstrike” with “explosive-laden drones” on the Israeli Yaara barracks near the border and a base near the coastal city of Akko, about 15 kilometers from the border.

The Israeli military said it had “identified several suspicious air targets coming from Lebanon,” most of which were intercepted, although others crashed in the Yaara area.

Early Monday, Hezbollah also said its fighters had targeted a group of Israeli soldiers who had “infiltrated” near the border, “confronting them with rocket weapons and artillery and forcing them to return.”

The NNA reported that “enemy fighter planes” flying low over Beirut and its suburbs broke the sound barrier twice.

'Impunity'

Imran Riza, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, said in a statement that in Lebanon, “nearly 150,000 people continue to live in areas affected by daily artillery shelling and airstrikes.”

“Millions more are reliving painful memories of the 2006 war and are traumatized by fears of further escalation,” he said, referring to the last major conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

According to the United Nations International Organization for Migration, more than 110,000 people have been displaced in southern Lebanon as a result of the violence since October.

In Israel, authorities estimate that around 100,000 people have left their homes in the north of the country.

Riza added that “21 medics were killed whose job it was to save others” and said that “the apparent impunity with which such actions were committed reveals a disturbing disregard for international humanitarian law.”

The cross-border violence left 585 people dead in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah fighters, but at least 128 of them civilians, according to a AFP match.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 23 soldiers and 26 civilians were killed, according to army sources.