Sidon, Lebanon – Israeli airstrikes hit two vehicles near a Lebanese army checkpoint in southern Lebanon on Sunday, killing one Hezbollah member and injuring several others, including civilians, Lebanese state media and health officials said. reported.
The attack appears to be part of a shift in Israel's strategy toward targeted killings in Lebanon after more than three months of near-daily clashes with Hezbollah militants on the border against the backdrop of the Gaza war.
Hezbollah announced that one of its members, identified as Fadel Shaar, was killed in an attack in the town of Khafra. Local civil defense authorities and hospital officials said seven people were injured, including two women, one of whom was in critical condition.
Video from the scene showed a sedan burst into flames next to a pickup truck stopped in the middle of the road.
The Israeli military has not commented on the attack.
Since the Israeli-Hamas war broke out on October 7, Hezbollah forces have clashed almost daily with Israeli forces along the border.
Previous clashes had been largely confined to small areas within a few miles of the border, but Israel appears to have shifted in recent weeks to a strategy of targeting and killing members of Hezbollah and its allies, sometimes from the border. They may also attack relatively remote areas. As in the case of Sunday's strike, the border.
A new attack Saturday near the Lebanese port city of Tire killed two people in a car, one of them a Hezbollah commander, and two others in a nearby orchard. Commander Ali Hudorji was buried in southern Lebanon on Sunday. Another occupant of the car, Mohammad Baqir Diab, a technology businessman, was identified as a civilian and was buried in Beirut on Sunday.
January 2, presumed Israeli Airstrike kills Hamas official Saleh AllouriThe attack on the outskirts of Beirut was the first in the Lebanese capital since Israel and Hezbollah fought a brutal month-long war in 2006.
Speaking at Khudruj's funeral on Sunday, Hezbollah MP Hussein Jessei said that he wanted to make up for Israel's failure to achieve a military victory against Hamas after more than 100 days of war in Gaza. “We resorted to assassinating some members of the resistance,'' he said.
The Lebanese militant group said in a statement late Sunday that it had attacked Abibim in northern Israel in retaliation for a civilian woman killed in an Israeli airstrike in Khafra and other “attacks targeting Lebanese villages and civilians.” announced that it had launched an attack on the town of
The statement was later amended to remove references to civilian deaths after hospital officials and family members said the woman was still alive.
Israel did not comment on the attack in Khafra, but announced on Sunday that it had struck Hezbollah targets in several locations in Lebanon. Later, an anti-tank missile hit a house in Avivim, but no injuries were reported, it said.
As the risk of regional conflict intensifies on multiple fronts, U.S. and European officials have conducted a flurry of shuttle diplomacy between Israel and Lebanon in recent weeks to try to prevent the conflict from escalating into full-scale war. . Lebanon front.
