Following an Israeli airstrike that, according to a Lebanese security source, killed two people in the south of the nation, Hezbollah in Lebanon launched rockets at Israel on Saturday.
The Israeli military claimed that the operation had targeted two operatives from the Iran-backed organization, Hezbollah, with whom it has been engaging in frequent cross-border fire exchanges since early October.
The northern Israeli border town of Kiryat Shmona was the target of dozens of rocket launches by the Shiite Muslim movement in retaliation.
Following the majority of the “roughly 15 launches… identified crossing from Lebanon” being intercepted by air defenses, the Israeli military said that four troops had been injured, one of them “severely.”
The IDF then stated that an Israeli aircraft “struck a Hezbollah field commander who was operating in the area of (Kfar) Tebnit in southern Lebanon.”
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported multiple wounded in an Israeli drone strike on a vehicle near Kfar Tebnit.
Hezbollah had already attacked Israeli military outposts along the border several times on Saturday.
In the Deir Mimas district of south Lebanon, “two civilians were filling up water from a roadside spring” when they were murdered in a “Israeli air strike,” according to a Lebanese security source who spoke to the media on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to do so.
One of the men was a member of the group and the father of a fighter who had been murdered, according to a source close to Hezbollah who also requested anonymity. The second man belonged to Hezbollah’s ally, the Amal movement.
The source clarified that the two were “civilians, not fighters”.
The Israeli army said in a statement that “soldiers identified two Hezbollah terrorists preparing to launch projectiles toward Israeli territory in the area of Deir Mimas in southern Lebanon”.
“Shortly following the identification, the IAF (air force) struck the terrorists,” the statement added.
Hezbollah said it had launched rockets “in response to the aggressions by the Israeli enemy against the villages… and civilians in the south”.
Since the Palestinian militant group’s attack on Israel on October 7 that sparked a conflict in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah and Israeli forces have engaged in practically daily firefights in support of Hamas.
One of the victims was a local council member for the Amal movement in the nearby village of Kfar Kila, according to the NNA, which added that two men were murdered by a “enemy drone” on Saturday in the same location.
The statement stated that they were gathering spring water “to take it for livestock in Kfar Kila”.
In a statement, the Amal movement said that one of its members—who was born in 1964—was slain.
According to an AFP count, since October, cross-border fighting in Lebanon has claimed the lives of over 500 individuals, the majority of them were fighters but also included over 90 civilians.
According to the officials, at least 29 persons have died on the Israeli side, most of them were troops.
The violence, which has mostly been contained to the border region, has stoked concerns about a full-scale war between the adversaries, who last fought in the summer of 2006.
