SIDON, Lebanon – An Israeli airstrike hit two vehicles near a Lebanese army checkpoint in southern Lebanon on Sunday, killing a Hezbollah member and wounding several others, including civilians, Lebanese state media reported and health officials.
The attack appeared to be part of a shift in Israeli strategy toward targeted killings in Lebanon after more than three months of near-daily clashes with Hezbollah militants on the border in the context of the war in Gaza.
Hezbollah announced that one of its members, identified as Fadel Shaar, had been killed in the attack in the city of Kafra. Local civil defense and hospital officials said seven people were injured, including two women, one of whom was in critical condition.
Video from the scene showed a passenger sedan on fire next to a small truck stopped in the middle of the road.
The Israeli military did not comment on the attack.
Since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, Hezbollah forces have engaged in almost daily clashes with Israeli troops along the border.
While fighting had previously been mainly limited to a narrow strip a few kilometers from the border, in recent weeks Israel appears to have adopted a strategy of targeted assassinations of Hezbollah figures and allied groups, sometimes attacking in areas relatively far from the border. border. border, as was the case with Sunday’s strike.
A Lebanese army officer stands next to a destroyed car in the southern city of Bazouriyeh, Lebanon, on Saturday. AP
On Saturday, another attack near the Lebanese port city of Tire killed two people in a car (one of them a Hezbollah commander) and two people in a nearby orchard. The commander, Ali Hudruj, was buried on Sunday in southern Lebanon. The other occupant of the vehicle, technology businessman Mohammad Baqir Diab, was identified as a civilian and was buried in Beirut on Sunday.
On January 2, a suspected Israeli airstrike killed a senior Hamas official, Saleh Arouri, in a Beirut suburb, the first such attack in Lebanon’s capital since Israel and Hezbollah fought a brutal month-long war. in 2006.
Speaking at Hudruj’s funeral on Sunday, Hezbollah member of Parliament Hussein Jeshi said Israel had “resorted to the method of assassinating some members of the resistance” to compensate for its inability to achieve a military victory against Hamas after more of 100 days of war in Gaza.
The Lebanese militant group said in a statement later on Sunday that it had launched an attack on the town of Avivim in northern Israel in retaliation for the death of a civilian woman in the Israeli attack in Kafra and for other “targeted attacks on villages.” and Lebanese civilians.”
The attack killed a Hezbollah member. AP
He later amended the statement to remove the reference to the civilian’s death after hospital officials and family members said the woman was still alive.
Israel did not comment on the attack in Kafra, but announced that it had struck Hezbollah targets in several locations in Lebanon on Sunday. He later said an anti-tank missile had hit a house in Avivim and no injuries were reported.
Faced with the danger of a regional conflict breaking out on multiple fronts, officials from the United States and Europe have engaged in a wave of shuttle diplomacy in recent weeks between Israel and Lebanon, trying to avoid an escalation of the conflict that would lead to an all-out war against Israel. the Lebanese front.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn