2023-11-03 02:38:54
Lebanese Hezbollah announced Thursday that it had carried out simultaneous attacks on “19 Israeli positions”, to which Israel responded with a “vast strike”, which left four dead according to the official agency in Beirut.
This escalation on the Lebanese-Israeli border comes on the eve of a highly anticipated speech by Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the powerful pro-Iranian Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian Hamas which is at war against Israel in the Gaza Strip.
In a statement, Hezbollah said that at 12:30 p.m. (Paris time) its fighters had attacked “at the same time 19 Zionist positions and military sites using guided missiles, shells” and other weapons. He added that at the same time, he attacked an Israeli barracks using “two drones filled with a large quantity of explosives” in the disputed Shebaa Farms border area.
Several exchanges of fire
Later, Hamas’ military wing in Lebanon, where Palestinian fighters are based, said in a Telegram message that it had “struck with 12 missiles” the northern Israeli town of Kyriat Shmona “in response to the massacres of the occupation against our people in Gaza.” These shots left two people injured, according to Israeli emergency services.
The Israeli army then announced that it had carried out a “vast strike” against Hezbollah. The strike, both air and artillery, targeted, according to a press release from the Israeli army, “infrastructure and headquarters of fighters as well as infrastructure belonging to the leadership of the Shiite terrorist movement”.
The National News Agency (ANI) indicated in a revised toll that four people were killed and another injured in Israeli bombings in southern Lebanon.
Earlier Thursday, Hezbollah announced that it had shot down an Israeli drone over Lebanese territory using a surface-to-air missile, for the second time since Sunday. And according to ANI, the Lebanese army found the bodies of two shepherds, aged 20 and 22, killed by Israeli fire. The two shepherds were reported missing on Wednesday while grazing their flock near the border village of Wazzani.
Already 70 dead on the Lebanese side, 9 on the Israeli side
The leader of Hezbollah gives his first speech on Friday since the start of the war between Palestinian Hamas and Israel, which should determine whether his powerful formation will engage Lebanon head-on in the conflict which has already left thousands dead.
Visiting Lebanon on Thursday, French Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu estimated that this country, already plunged into a serious economic and political crisis, had “no need for a war” with its Israeli neighbor, warning against a risk of escalation in the region.
The border clashes began the day after the unprecedented October 7 attack by Hamas against Israel, which responded by relentlessly bombing the Gaza Strip, a war that has claimed thousands of lives.
The violence left 70 dead in southern Lebanon, according to an AFP count, including 52 pro-Iranian Hezbollah fighters and at least seven civilians. Eight soldiers and one civilian were killed on the Israeli side, according to authorities.
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