BEIRUT: Skirmishes on the southern Lebanese border reached unprecedented levels on Wednesday as Israel expanded its target list to include Palestinian officials, killing a senior Fatah leader.

Hezbollah announced it targeted an Israeli tank near the border town of Aabbasiyyeh with a guided missile while the vehicle was shelling the outskirts of the town of Halta, part of the municipality of Kfarchouba in southeast Lebanon.

It was the second direct confrontation of its kind since the start of hostilities between the Israeli army and Hezbollah. Over the previous 10 months, hostile operations had been limited to rocket and artillery exchanges, as well as air raids.

After violence in the Bekaa region on Tuesday night, an Israeli drone launched a guided missile at a car in the town of Beit Lif on Wednesday morning, killing its Lebanese driver. Israeli shelling on the town of Wazzani resulted in the death of a young Syrian man.

Israeli jets struck a two-story house in the border town of Dhayra, killing three people.

A motorcyclist narrowly escaped death after an Israeli drone fired a missile at his vehicle in the town of Chehabiyeh in the Tyre region.

At noon, an Israeli drone launched an airstrike on a car in the city of Sidon, near the Ain Al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, killing retired Fatah officer Khalil Al-Maqdah.

Al-Maqdah was the brother of Munir Al-Maqdah, the chief of the Lebanese branch of Fatah’s armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, which mourned him as “one of our leaders in Lebanon.” 

However, Israel’s Channel 14 reported that Al-Maqdah was an operative in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force.

The channel alleged that he had been “transferring money and weapons to the West Bank.”

Israeli attacks on the Bekaa on Tuesday night resulted in the death of Ali Ahmad Al-Moussawi and injured 30 people, including four Syrians, according to the Ministry of Health’s emergency center. Among the injured were nine children, including Karine Mohammed Al-Moussawi (5), Huda Ali Al-Moussawi (2), Nour Mohammed Nazem Al-Moussawi (8) and Hussein Ali Al-Moussawi (4).

Tuesday night’s airstrikes targeted the towns of Al-Nabi Sheet, Bodai and Sar’in, “where the Israeli army used highly explosive bombs that caused terrifying blasts,” according to a security source.

The Israeli army claimed that it “attacked a compound in the Bekaa region belonging to Hezbollah’s air defense system, which posed a threat to Israeli aircraft.” It added: “We bombed several Hezbollah weapons storage facilities in the Bekaa region during the night.”

Hezbollah’s response on Wednesday included targeting the Tsnobar logistics base in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights with barrages of Katyusha rockets.

The party’s military media said that the base is located 18 km from Lebanon’s southern border.

“It is a logistics base under the Israeli army’s Northern Command and serves as a training ground for infantry troops in the occupied Golan Heights,” a statement said.

“It houses an artillery ammunition center belonging to the Israeli army’s regional armament unit and is protected by the Iron Dome system.”

In response to the targeting of the town of Naqoura, which left four wounded, including three medics, Hezbollah shelled the Yara barracks with Katyusha rockets, targeting the “headquarters of the 300th Western Brigade.”

For the second time, the party targeted the Amiad base, “where the Galilee Division reserve and warehouses are stationed, and a reserve headquarters of the Northern Corps.”

Hezbollah targeted the Hadab Yaroun site with artillery as well as “an Israeli force moving in the vicinity of the Zarit barracks with artillery shells.”

The party also mourned five of its members: Raed Ali Khattab (born 1995) from Aita Al-Shaab, Ziad Mohammed Qashmar (born 1994) from Hallousiyeh, Ali Ahmed Doqmaqq (born 1999) from Nabatieh, Mohammed Ghazi Chahine (born 1989) from Tyre and Hussein Mohammed Mustafa (1975) from Beit Lif.

While diplomatic reports suggested that ceasefire negotiations were on the verge of collapse, the head of the UN Truce Supervision Organization mission in Lebanon, Maj. Gen. Patrick Gauchat, warned of the potential for escalation on the border.

His comments came during a meeting with Lebanese caretaker Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib.

Gauchat said that the UNTSO is “fulfilling its role and monitoring the border from both sides.”