Israel Strikes Hezbollah Site In East Lebanon

Israel Sunday struck a Hezbollah site in Lebanon’s east near the Syrian border, the Israeli army and a source from the Iran-backed group said, as tensions soared after Iran directly attacked Israel.

The Hezbollah source told AFP that “the Israeli strike targeted an area… near Baalbek and targeted a two-storey building belonging to Hezbollah,” adding there were no casualties.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that “an enemy air strike targeted a building” in the village of Nabi Sheet and “destroyed it”.

An AFP photographer at the site saw the concrete and steel wreckage of the building, levelled in the attack.

The Israeli army said in a statement that in response to launches overnight, “fighter jets struck a significant Hezbollah weapons manufacturing site” in the Nabi Sheet area “deep inside Lebanon”.

Earlier Sunday, Hezbollah said it had twice launched barrages of Katyusha rockets towards the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, saying they were in response to Israeli attacks on “villages and towns” in Lebanon.

It has launched similar barrages in the past, but Sunday’s launches coincided with a major Iranian drone and missile attack against Israel.

The Iranian attack was in response to an April 1 air strike widely blamed on Israel that destroyed an Iranian consulate building in Damascus, killing seven Revolutionary Guards, including two generals.

Hamas ally Hezbollah has exchanged near-daily cross-border fire with Israel since the Palestinian militant group attacked southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in the Gaza Strip.

The violence, which has largely been contained to the Israeli-Lebanese border area, has killed at least 364 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also including at least 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Hezbollah on Sunday said one of its fighters from south Lebanon’s Khiam had been killed, without specifying where or when he died.

The Israeli army had also said its fighter jets struck Hezbollah “military structures” in south Lebanon overnight, including in Khiam.

The NNA reported Israeli attacks on various locations in south Lebanon overnight, and at least one strike on Sunday afternoon.

In Israel, the military says 10 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed since hostilities began.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled their homes on both sides of the border.

AFP