BEIRUT: A local Hezbollah official was seriously wounded Monday in an Israeli air strike on his car in southern Lebanon, a Lebanese security source told AFP.
Israeli forces and the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, have traded near-daily fire since war broke out on October 7 between Israel and the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip.
The source said an Israeli strike “targeted a local Hezbollah official in the town of Bint Jbeil” and the official was “seriously injured.”
Lebanon’s official National News Agency meanwhile said “an enemy drone targeted a car near the hospital” in Bint Jbeil, which lies near the country’s southern border with Israel.
An AFP journalist on the ground saw the targeted car, severely damaged with its roof pierced through.
Israel has launched a series of strikes in recent days that have injured officials from Lebanese and Palestinian armed groups in southern Lebanon.
On Saturday, senior Hamas officer Bassel Saleh survived a reported Israeli strike on his car in the Lebanese border town of Hula, security sources said, adding that two others were killed in the strike.
On Thursday, an Israeli drone strike seriously wounded a Hezbollah commander in the southern city of Nabatiyeh, with the group later firing a salvo of rockets into northern Israel.
Israeli strikes on Monday targeted a number of villages in the south of Lebanon, according to AFP and NNA journalists.
Cross-border fire since the start of the Israel-Hamas war has killed at least 231 people in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also including 30 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, nine soldiers and six civilians have been killed, according to the Israeli army.
Hezbollah official wounded in Israeli strike on Lebanon: security source
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Hezbollah official wounded in Israeli strike on Lebanon: security source
UN peacekeepers say Israeli forces fired on them in southern Lebanon
- “Yesterday, peacekeepers in vehicles patrolling the Blue Line were fired upon by IDF soldiers in a Merkava tank,” UNIFIL said
- It said that both the peacekeepers and the Israeli tank were in Lebanese territory
BEIRUT: The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said Wednesday that Israeli forces fired on its peacekeepers a day earlier in the country’s south, urging Israel’s army to “cease aggressive behavior.”
It is the latest such incident reported by the peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, where UNIFIL acts as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon and has been working with Lebanon’s army to support a year-old truce between Israel and militant group Hezbollah.
“Yesterday, peacekeepers in vehicles patrolling the Blue Line were fired upon by IDF (Israeli army) soldiers in a Merkava tank,” a UNIFIL statement said, referring to the de facto border.
“One ten-round burst of machine-gun fire was fired above the convoy, and four further ten-round bursts were fired nearby,” the statement said.
It said that both the peacekeepers and the Israeli tank were in Lebanese territory at the time of the incident and that the Israeli military had been informed of the location and timing of the peacekeeping patrol in advance.
“Peacekeepers asked the IDF to stop firing through UNIFIL’s liaison channels... Fortunately, no one was injured,” it said.
Last month UNIFIL said Israeli soldiers shot at its troops in the south, while Israel’s military said it mistook blue helmets for “suspects” and fired warning shots.
In October, UNIFIL said one of its members was wounded by an Israeli grenade dropped near a UN position in the country’s south, the third incident of its kind in just over a month.
“Attacks on or near peacekeepers are serious violations of (UN) Security Council Resolution 1701,” UNIFIL said on Wednesday, referring to the 2006 resolution that formed the basis of the November 2024 truce.
“We call on the IDF to cease aggressive behavior and attacks on or near peacekeepers working to rebuild stability along the Blue Line,” the peacekeepers said.
Israel carries out regular attacks on Lebanon despite the truce, usually saying it is targeting sites and operatives belonging to Hezbollah, which it accuses of rearming.
It has also kept troops in five south Lebanon areas it deems strategic.
On Saturday, a UN Security Council delegation visiting Lebanon urged all parties to uphold the ceasefire.
It emphasized that the “safety of peacekeepers must be respected and that they must never be targeted,” after gunmen on mopeds attacked UNIFIL personnel last week.
