Hezbollah launches drone attack on northern Israel
5 August 2024, 08:34
Two Israeli soldiers were injured amid fears of a wider regional war.
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it launched a drone attack on northern Israel that injured two Israeli troops.
The violence came as fears of an all-out regional war mount following the killings last week of a senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon and Hamas’s top political leader in Iran.
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah said in a statement it targeted a military base in northern Israel in response to “attacks and assassinations” carried out by Israel in several villages in south Lebanon.
The attack did not appear to be part of a more intense retaliation expected in response to the killing of Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur in Beirut last week.
The Israeli military said fire services were working to put out a blaze sparked by the attack in Ayelet HaShahar in the upper Galilee.
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily strikes for the past 10 months against the backdrop of the war in Gaza, but they have previously kept the conflict at a low level that had not escalated into full-on war.
Last week’s assassinations of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran’s capital, Tehran, and Hezbollah commander Shukur in Beirut raised tensions in the region.
Israel has been bracing for a retaliation from Iran and its allied militias.
