Israeli airstrikes hit northeast Lebanon killing 2 Hezbollah men
Militant group says it hit ‘Meron airbase with guided missiles’ in response to Israeli attack on Souairi
Israeli war planes struck near two towns in northeast Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least two Hezbollah militants, security sources said, the furthest bombardment yet from the border where Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged fire.
Israel confirmed the strikes near Ras Baabelk and Hermel and said its aircraft targeted a number of military sites used by Hezbollah in response to a rocket attack on one of its bases near the Lebanese border.
Hostilities escalated as negotiations over a humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip and the release of hostages faltered.
In an Israeli raid on the BaalbekHermel district, a drone pursued a small truck in the Ras Baalbek Plain, near the city of Hermel, where explosions were heard, and clouds of smoke were visible. Eyewitnesses said the
raid appeared to have targeted the vehicle and that Hezbollah had set up a security cordon in the area. It was the first time since Israel began attacking the Baalbek area that its raids had reached the far northern Bekaa Valley.
The Israeli Public Broadcasting Corp. said the Israeli army “launched raids on targets in Baalbek in response to the targeting of an air-control unit in Meron.”
Israeli media reported that “a drone penetrated the Upper Galilee region and Mount Meron and fell without alarms sounding.”
The report said the army was investigating to find out why alarms were not activated. Hezbollah said that it targeted “the Meron airbase with guided missiles in response to the Zionist enemy’s attack on the town of Souairi in the Western Bekaa on Sunday.”
The Israeli army resumed artillery shelling on Lebanese border towns, while Israeli drone flights continued in the south, the Bekaa, and the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Israeli bombardments struck Al-Mari-Hasbaya district, Maroun Al-Ras in the Bint Jbeil district, as well as Aitaroun and Aita Al-Shaab and the area between Yaroun and Rmeish.
Also, on Tuesday, there was a confrontation between residents of Rmeish and Hezbollah members, the first such face-off since tensions escalated along Lebanon’s southern border.
The residents stopped Hezbollah members trying to set up a rocket launcher on a hill near the town, then gathered in the town square, ringing church bells.
Tensions increased when three Israeli missiles hit the hill.
Rmeish has the biggest parish in the Maronite Diocese of Tyre and residents are preparing to celebrate Easter this weekend.
Sami Gemayel, the leader of the Lebanese Phalange Party, backed the town’s residents.
The Israeli attacks also hit Tair Harfa town, where a spokesperson for the Islamic Risala Scout Association’s civil defense operations room said the bombing caused “extensive harm to the civil defense main office, as well as damage to ambulances and fire engines.” Hezbollah in turn reported targeting “two buildings in the Avivim settlement, which were being used by occupation soldiers.” Israeli Channel 12 said that Hezbollah “targeted a wine factory in the same settlement, causing serious damage but no casualties.” The group also fired at “an Israeli infantry unit in the vicinity of Shtoula with missiles, hitting it directly and leaving its members dead or wounded.”
In the early hours of Tuesday, Hezbollah hit “a building used by Israeli army soldiers in the
Shomera settlement,” and “a deployment of soldiers in the Hanita settlement.”
Separately, the head of a Lebanese Sunni political and militant group that has joined Hezbollah in its fight against Israel said that the conflict has helped strengthen cooperation between the two groups.
The Secretary-General of Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, Sheikh Mohammed Takkoush, said his faction decided to join the fighting along the Lebanon-Israel border because of Israel’s crushing offensive on the Gaza Strip and its strikes against Lebanese towns and villages killing civilians, including journalists, since the Israel-Hamas war started on Oct.7.
“We decided to join (the battle) as a national, religious and moral duty. We did that to defend our land and villages,” Takkoush told The Associated Press at his group’s headquarters in Beirut. “We also did so in support of our brothers in Gaza,” where he said Israel was committing an “open massacre.”