BEIRUT: A war monitor said an Israeli strike on Tuesday in Syria killed two people, with a source close to Hezbollah saying a former bodyguard to the group’s leader died in the raid.

Hezbollah since October has traded almost daily cross-border fire from Lebanon with the Israeli army in support of Palestinian ally Hamas, with Israel targeting operatives from the group in both Lebanon and neighbouring Syria.

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

A source close to the Iran-backed group said that a former bodyguard to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was killed in the strike, identifying him by the surname of Qarnabash.

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

The group later said it launched “dozens of Katyusha rockets” at a military base in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights “in response to the attack and assassination that the Israeli enemy carried out.”

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2024