Hezbollah strikes deep in northern Israel after attack kills key member near Baalbek – Naharnet

Hezbollah fired rockets into an area deep in northern Israel on Sunday after an Israeli airstrike killed one of its supporters near the eastern Israeli city of Baalbek on Saturday.

In a statement, the group said it fired dozens of Katyusha rockets at the Nimra military base west of Tiberias in response to the attack near Baalbek. It described Nimra as “one of the most important bases in the northern region” of Israel.

In an earlier statement, the group said it had destroyed spy equipment in the Israeli post al-Raheb with “appropriate weapons.”

Shortly after the attack on Nimra, Israeli airstrikes hit a house in the town of Maaroub in the Tyre district and in several border towns.

The Israeli army said on Saturday that the killed Hezbollah activist was part of the group’s air defense unit.

Since the attack by its Palestinian ally Hamas on Israel on October 7, which led to the outbreak of the Gaza war, Hezbollah has been engaged in almost daily exchanges of fire with the Israeli army on Lebanon’s southern border.

“A local Hezbollah official” was killed in an attack by an “Israeli drone” on a vehicle near the eastern Israeli city of Baalbek, a source close to the group told AFP on Saturday.

Lebanon’s official news agency NNA reported that one person was killed when an “enemy drone” attacked a vehicle in the Shaat region, about 15 kilometers north of Baalbek.

The area is located about 100 kilometers from Lebanon’s southern border with Israel.

The Israeli military said in a statement that the air force was “deployed in the Baalbek area to attack and eliminate a key agent of Hezbollah’s air defense unit.”

The Hezbollah member was involved in “planning and carrying out numerous terrorist attacks” against Israel and helped build the group’s “arsenal of Iranian weapons,” the statement added.

Hezbollah announced that a fighter from the region had been killed and identified him as Maitham al-Attar.

Two high-ranking Hezbollah commanders were killed in recent Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon – one of them this week. In response, Hezbollah rained rockets on northern Israel.

Cross-border exchanges of fire were largely confined to the border areas, although Israel repeatedly struck deep inside eastern Lebanon.

On Saturday, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for several attacks on Israeli positions near the southern border, including one using “explosive drones” in response to “attacks by the Israeli enemy” on villages in southern Lebanon.

The Lebanese National Transport Force (NNA) reported several Israeli attacks on areas in southern Lebanon later on Saturday.

Hezbollah says it supports the people of the Gaza Strip and Hamas with its attacks, which began on October 8.

The escalating violence has raised fears of a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah, which were last at war in 2006.

According to an AFP count, at least 497 people were killed in the cross-border attacks in Lebanon, most of them fighters, but also 95 civilians.

According to Israeli authorities, at least 16 soldiers and 11 civilians were killed on their side of the border.