BEIRUT: An Israeli soldier and two Hezbollah fighters were killed on Monday in clashes, Israel’s military and the Lebanese group said, the latest in a wave of cross-border violence.

Hezbollah and Iran vowed to respond after an Israeli strike last month on Beirut killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, hours before an attack in Tehran, blamed on Israel, killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.

The Israeli military said a member of its Bedouin Trackers Unit “fell during combat in northern Israel”.

Hezbollah said two of its fighters were “martyred” after Lebanon’s health ministry reported that an Israeli strike left two people dead in the border village of Hula.

Israel’s military said air forces struck in the Hula area and “Hezbollah military structures” elsewhere in south Lebanon.

Hezbollah had said earlier it launched a “simultaneous air attack” with “explosive-laden drones” on two Israeli military positions — the Yaara barracks near the border, and a base near the coastal town of Acre, around 15 kilometres from the frontier.

The Israeli military said that “multiple suspicious aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon”.

Air defences “intercepted some of the targets, and others fell” in the Yaara area, it said.

Hezbollah said that it responded to an Israeli “attack and assassination” in south Lebanon’s Tyre area.

Hezbollah said its fighters targeted a group of Israeli soldiers “infiltrating” near the border and confronted them “with rocket weapons and artillery, forcing them to return”. Hezbollah also claimed attacks on other Israeli positions on Monday.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli shelling and raids on several southern areas and said “enemy warplanes” flying at low altitude broke the sound barrier twice over Beirut and its suburbs.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2024