Israel’s military said on Friday that one of its soldiers was killed in combat near the border with Lebanon a day earlier, AFP reports.

The military identified the dead man as a 33-year-old sergeant. It did not specify how he died, but Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said he was killed in a drone strike.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah group and Israel have been trading fire for nearly nine months in hostilities that have played out in parallel to the Gaza conflict, raising fears of an all-out war between the heavily armed adversaries.