Two dead in Israeli attack, including a former Hezbollah member

A war observer said two people were killed in an Israeli attack in Syria on Tuesday. A source close to Lebanon’s Hezbollah said a former bodyguard of the group’s leader died in the attack.

Since October, Hezbollah and the Israeli army have exchanged fire almost daily in support of the Gaza Strip, with Israel targeting the group’s activists in both Lebanon and neighboring Syria.

“At least two people were killed and one injured in an Israeli drone attack on a Hezbollah car near a Syrian army checkpoint near the border with Lebanon,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A source close to the Iran-backed group, who wished to remain anonymous, said: AFP that a former bodyguard of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in the attack; he was identified by the surname Qarnabash.

In a statement, Hezbollah announced the death of a fighter with the same surname.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of attacks in the country, primarily targeting army positions and Iranian-backed fighters, including the Lebanese Hezbollah.

The attacks intensified after the outbreak of the Israeli war in Gaza, in which over 38,000 Palestinians were killed, but they subsided when an attack attributed to Israel hit the Iranian consulate building in Damascus on April 1, escalating tensions in the region.

Since the outbreak of the Gaza war, at least 25 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in Israeli attacks in Syria, according to a AFP to match.

Last month, an Israeli attack targeted a tanker convoy entering Lebanon from Syria, the Observatory said. Hezbollah reported three casualties, and a source close to the group said they were killed in the eastern Lebanese region of Hermel.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Syrian Defense Ministry said an Israeli attack had caused damage near the coastal town of Baniyas but no casualties. The Observatory said Iranian military advisers were stationed in the area.

Israeli authorities rarely comment on individual attacks, but have repeatedly stated that they would not allow their arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.

The war in Syria has killed more than half a million people and forced millions more to flee since it broke out in 2011 after Damascus brutally suppressed peaceful anti-government protests.

Nasrallah is scheduled to deliver a televised speech on Wednesday at an event commemorating a commander killed in an Israeli strike in Lebanon earlier this month.