Five people were killed before midnight Monday, including three Syrians working with Hezbollah, in Israeli strikes targeting a convoy of fuel trucks entering Lebanon from neighboring Syria, an NGO and military sources said. Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas on October 7, the powerful Lebanese Hezbollah has regularly exchanged fire with the Israeli army, in support of its Palestinian ally. The strike targeting tanker trucks comes against a backdrop of intensifying violence between pro-Iranian Hezbollah and Israel in recent weeks.
“In the night, Israeli warplanes struck a military compound”
“Three Syrians who work with Hezbollah and two Lebanese were killed in an Israeli strike targeting a convoy of tankers entering Lebanon, on the border with Syria, on the road between Hermel and Qousseir,” said to AFP the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahmane. The NGO, based in the United Kingdom but which has a vast network of sources in the war-torn country, added that five other people had been injured and that two people had not yet been found.
“In the night, Israeli warplanes struck a military compound of Hezbollah unit 4400, responsible for logistical reinforcement (…) and the smuggling of weapons to and from Lebanon,” said in a statement. communicated the Israeli army, saying it had targeted two sites in the Baalbek sector. The Israeli army also claimed strikes in southern Lebanon, saying it carried out these operations after one of its drones was shot down in Lebanese skies on Monday. A few hours before Monday evening’s strikes, the pro-Iranian movement announced that it had shot down a new Israeli Hermes-type drone over Lebanon, the fifth of this type since February.
Hezbollah, which is making increased use of attack drones to circumvent Israeli radars, also claimed several attacks on Monday, including one using a “drone squadron” against an Israeli position on the Golan Heights. occupied by Israel.
Counter the attack
At the same time, the Syrian anti-aircraft defense was activated to counter the attack, according to the OSDH. “At least three Hezbollah members were killed by nine Israeli missiles targeting tanker trucks carrying oil,” a military source told AFP. She added that these strikes also targeted a building in the Lebanese region of Hermel, some 140 km from the Israeli border, “near the Syrian town of Hawch el-Sayyed Ali, completely destroying it.”
The Shiite movement is strongly deployed on both sides of the eastern border between Lebanon and Syria, particularly in the Qousseir region, where Hezbollah first revealed its military commitment alongside the Syrian regime in 2013. Israel, for its part, has intensified its targeted strikes against fighters of the Shiite party and is targeting Lebanese territory ever deeper, in particular the Baalbeck region, Hezbollah stronghold in the east.
More than eight months of violence have left at least 462 dead in Lebanon, including around 90 civilians and nearly 300 Hezbollah fighters, according to an AFP count. More than 24 Hezbollah fighters have died in Israeli strikes in Syria since October 7.