Emergency services in Israel said that two persons had died in a missile strike on the northern city of Kiryat Shmona on Wednesday when Hezbollah of Lebanon and the army were fighting each other near the border.
“We found a man and a woman aged around 40 years old, unconscious and injured by shrapnel,” said emergency service provider Magen David Adom in a statement.
“We carried out medical examinations, but their injuries were serious and we had to declare them dead on the spot.”
Since Israel dispatched ground soldiers into southern Lebanon and started regularly hitting Beirut with its jets, this is the first event in which civilians have died.
Due to Kiryat Shmona’s close proximity to the Lebanese border and regular targeting by Hezbollah rocket salvos, the area has been designated as a closed military zone.
The air raid sirens in Kiryat Shmona were triggered, and the Israeli military said that about twenty projectile launches were detected crossing from Lebanon.
After the Palestinian group’s devastating strike on Israel on October 7, 2023, almost a year after Hezbollah started firing across borders in support of its allies, Hamas, Israel increased its operations in Lebanon.
While battling Hamas in Gaza, Israel has vowed to secure its northern border with Lebanon to allow tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by Hezbollah fire to return home.
