Hezbollah fires rockets after Zionists hit east Lebanon, killing two
BAALBEK: Hezbollah on Monday fired a volley of rockets at Zionist military base, the Lebanese group said after first strikes on Lebanon’s east in months of hostilities linked to the Gaza war. It was the first Zionist attack on Hezbollah outside Lebanon’s south since war erupted on October 7 between Zionist and Palestinian militant group Hamas, a Hezbollah ally.
Hezbollah and arch-foe have exchanged near-daily fire, but strikes have been largely contained to the border area. Two Hezbollah members were killed in the strikes in the eastern Baalbek area, two security officials in Lebanon and a source close to the Iranbacked group told AFP. “In response to the Zionist aggression near the city of Baalbek,” fighters targeted an army base in the occupied Golan Heights “with 60 Katyusha rockets”, Hezbollah said in a statement.
The Zionist army told AFP that “dozens of rockets” had been launched from Lebanon. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Earlier the army said its strikes near Baalbek targeted Hezbollah “aerial defense” sites in retaliation for the group’s downing one of its drones in south Lebanon. One of the Lebanese security sources said Zionist strikes hit a building used by Hezbollah in a Baalbek suburb, and a warehouse near Baalbek belonging to the group. Both sources requested anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the press.
‘Determination’
Later Monday a strike on a car in southern Lebanon killed at least one person, local rescuers told AFP, without providing further details. Hezbollah said a third fighter had been killed by Zionist fire. The Zionist army said in a statement that the strike killed a Hezbollah fighter who “commanded recent terrorist activities... against civilians and soldiers”. Hezbollah announced several other attacks on Zionist sites and troops on Monday, with local media also reporting Zionist strikes on south Lebanon villages. During a funeral procession for one of the group’s fighters, Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah lambasted the strikes on Baalbek, a bastion of the Shiite Muslim movement near the border with Syria.
“This Zionist encroachment will not push us to retreat, it will rather increase our determination,” Fadlallah said in a televised address. The cross-border hostilities have killed at least 281 people on the Lebanese side, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also including 44 civilians, according to an AFP tally. On the Zionist side, 10 soldiers and six civilians have been killed since October, according to the army.
Residents on both sides of the border have been displaced by the fighting, and Zionist officials have threatened military action to restore security in the country’s north. On Sunday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said there would be no let up in action against Hezbollah even if a ceasefire were secured in Gaza. Hezbollah has said it will stop launching attacks if the Zionist military ends its Gaza offensive. — AFP