Woman killed in Lebanon as Israel and Hezbollah trade border fire

An elderly woman has been killed and her husband injured by Israeli shelling on the southern Lebanese border village of Maroun Al Ras, Lebanon’s National News Agency has reported.

The woman, identified as Nihad Muhanna, was killed in her home on Thursday.

She was the third civilian killed by Israeli bombardment of southern Lebanon in 24 hours.

Since Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah began exchanging fire over the border in early October, at least 20 Lebanese civilians have been killed, including three journalists, AFP has reported.

In Israel, the official death toll stands at four civilians and seven soldiers.

The Israeli army said it carried out air and artillery strikes against Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon on Thursday, after the Shiite militia fired rockets at the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona on Wednesday night.

Hezbollah said the rocket attack was a retaliation for Israel’s killing of a Lebanese civilian on Wednesday. The militia said it would “never tolerate harming civilians” or allow “villages and towns to be invaded”.

Two anti-tank missiles were fired from Lebanon into the Israeli towns of Avivim and Doviv on Thursday afternoon, injuring at least two people, Israeli media reported.

Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack and said it was “in response to the Israeli enemy’s attacks on villages and civilian homes, the martyrdom of citizen Nihad Muhanna, and the wounding of her husband”.

In recent weeks, Israel has increased its rhetoric towards Hezbollah, saying the group’s presence on its northern border would not be tolerated.

The country has repeatedly threatened to go to war with Lebanon, a maximalist tactic political analysts have called “diplomacy of force”.

On Wednesday, a civilian was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper while driving his car on a road near the southern Lebanese village of Kfarkela.

More than 130 Lebanese have been killed since the start of the conflict, most of them Hezbollah fighters.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah announced the death of two more of its militants.

The Lebanese state is not an active party in the border conflict, although one of its soldiers was killed near the border by Israel earlier this month.

Israel has increased its rhetoric towards Hezbollah, saying its presence on its border would not be tolerated