(Beirut) Hezbollah announced Tuesday the death of three of its members in Israeli strikes in Lebanon, from where the powerful Lebanese formation supported by Iran launched attacks on northern Israel.
This violence comes in an extremely tense regional context after an unprecedented attack by Iran over the weekend using drones and missiles against Israel, which vows to retaliate.
An Israeli army plane “eliminated Ismail Youssef Baz, the commander of Hezbollah’s coastal sector,” the Israeli army announced in a statement.
According to a source close to the pro-Iranian party, the man was killed in a strike on the village of Ain Baal, around fifteen kilometers from the Israeli border.
Baz participated in “planning the firing of rockets and anti-tank missiles towards Israel (…)”, according to the Israeli army which indicated that it had also targeted other Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.
The National Information Agency (ANI) for its part reported one person killed in an Israeli strike on Aïn Baal and deaths, without specifying the number, in an Israeli raid which targeted two cars in the locality of Chehabiyé, about ten kilometers away.
Hezbollah announced the death of Baz and two other fighters in Israeli raids, without further details.
The Shiite Amal movement, an ally of Hezbollah, for its part announced the death of one of its fighters in the strike on Aïn Baal.
Explosive drones
Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas on October 7, Hezbollah has carried out daily attacks against Israel to support its ally, the Palestinian Islamist movement.
The Israeli army responds by bombarding Lebanese territory more and more deeply and by carrying out targeted attacks against Hezbollah officials.
The powerful formation announced that it had launched rocket salvos at several Israeli military bases in response to the strikes.
Hezbollah had earlier announced that it had launched “suicide drones (..) on Beit Hillel”, in northern Israel, which targeted “the launch pads of the “Iron Dome” and their personnel”, in reference to the Israeli air defense system.
The Israeli army announced that “two armed drones crossing the border from Lebanon exploded in the Beit Hillel area”.
The Upper Galilee Regional Council said three people were injured.
On Monday, the Israeli army announced that four soldiers had been injured in Lebanese territory after Hezbollah claimed to have detonated bombs as they passed.
More than six months of violence have left 368 dead on the Lebanese side, mainly Hezbollah fighters but also some 70 civilians, according to an AFP count.
In northern Israel, ten soldiers and eight civilians were killed according to the army. Tens of thousands of residents had to flee the area on both sides of the border.
reference: www.lapresse.ca