BEIRUT: Hezbollah said on Friday that Israeli fire killed seven of its fighters, without specifying where or when they died as border tensions persist during the Gaza unrest.

The group named the seven fighters in a statement stating they were “martyred on the road to Jerusalem”, the phrase Hezbollah uses to mourn members — now numbering 68 — killed since border clashes with Israel began last month.

Hezbollah later released several statements claiming attacks on northern Israel near the border, including three drone assaults — one of them on an Israeli army barrack.

Also on Friday, Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported an Israeli shell fell in the courtyard of a Lebanese border village hospital but did not explode.

The agency also reported Israeli shelling on several border villages, including Mais al-Jabal, where a family was evacuated from a house hit by Israel, and in Hula where Israeli fire “lightly injured” a Lebanese man.

On Wednesday, Israeli air strikes killed three fighters as they claimed belonging to Hezbollah near the Syrian capital Damascus, according to the Observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria.

Israel has struck Syria several times in the past month.

At least 90 people have been killed on the Lebanese side in cross-border skirmishes, according to a tally, most of them Hezbollah combattants. Six soldiers and two civilians have been killed on the Israeli side.

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2023