2024-03-24 00:58:54
An AFP correspondent reported Israeli air strikes on a two-story building near Baalbeck, in eastern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold, during the night from Saturday to Sunday.
“Israeli aircraft launched five missiles at a two-story residential building in al-Osseira, on the outskirts of Baalbeck,” the correspondent said. It is the third strike in nearly six months of fighting between Hezbollah and the IDF in this remote region of the border with Israel.
Climbing since October 7
Since the unprecedented attack by Palestinian Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, Lebanese Hezbollah has exchanged deadly fire with the Israeli army on the Israeli-Lebanese border. The Shiite party says it is targeting Israeli military positions in support of the Islamist movement Hamas, after the war launched by Israel against its ally in Gaza.
The Israeli army responds with aerial and artillery bombardments which it says target the party’s “infrastructure” and the movements of fighters near the border.
Cross-border violence escalated at the beginning of February, with Israel launching a series of deadly strikes against southern Lebanon on Wednesday, which left at least 15 dead, including ten civilians, according to an AFP count. The strikes were carried out in retaliation for an unclaimed rocket attack from Lebanon on a military base in northern Israel, which killed a female soldier.
Between October 7 and mid-February, at least 269 people, mostly fighters from Hezbollah and other allied groups but also 40 civilians, were killed in southern Lebanon, according to a count by the AFP. On the Israeli side, ten soldiers and six civilians were killed, according to the army.
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