BEIRUT: Six Hezbollah fighters were killed in an Israeli strike on Tuesday, the group said, as low-flying Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier over Beirut, Lebanese security sources said.
Hezbollah has continued to retaliate against Israel in support of its ally Hamas since the Palestinian terrorist group attacked Israel on October 7, sparking the war in the Gaza Strip.
Tensions have risen in the past week as Iran and its allies vowed revenge for the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, blaming Israel, and an Israeli strike that killed top Hezbollah commander General Fouad Shukr in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Lebanon's health ministry said an “Israeli enemy attack on a house in Mayfadoon” near the southern city of Nabatiyeh killed five people, while another Israeli attack in the Adeyemi area also killed one person.
A security source told AFP that the dead at both locations were “Hezbollah fighters,” asking not to be identified as the matter is sensitive.
Hezbollah said five of its fighters had been killed, without specifying where they died.
The Israeli military said its air force “strikes on Hezbollah military structures” in the Nabatiyeh area, which are being used “to further terrorist attacks” against Israel.
Hezbollah claimed to have carried out a series of attacks on Israeli positions on Tuesday, including one using “explosive-laden drones” that hit a military camp north of the coastal city of Aqar.
The Israeli military said it had “identified several enemy UAVs flying from Lebanon,” adding that “several civilians were injured south of Nahariya” near the town of Aqar.
Authorities later said a preliminary investigation indicated one of the interceptor missiles “missed its target and hit the ground, injuring several civilians,” adding that “the incident is currently under investigation.”
Israel's Magen David Adom emergency services said emergency medical personnel were treating “a 30-year-old man in serious 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 that, according to the Israeli military, targeted the commander of the group's special forces, the Radwan Force.
An Israeli military plane flew low over Beirut on Tuesday, breaking the sound barrier, ahead of a speech by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, Lebanon's National News Agency, security sources and an AFP journalist reported.
Nasrallah made a televised speech a week after the killing of Shukr, whom Israel described as the group's “most senior military commander” and Nasrallah's “right-hand man.”
Cross-border violence since October has killed some 556 people in Lebanon, mostly militants, but also at least 116 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, including the annexed Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 25 civilians were killed, according to military figures.
Diplomatic efforts have been underway to avoid a regional conflict and a full-scale conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which last went to war in the summer of 2006.
