Lebanon said Israeli strikes near the Syrian border and in the country’s south killed three people on Thursday, as Israel said it targeted a member of Iran’s elite Quds Force and a Hezbollah operative.
Despite a November 2024 ceasefire that was supposed to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, Israel has kept up strikes on Lebanon and has maintained troops in five areas it deems strategic.
“An Israeli enemy strike today on a vehicle in the town of Hawsh al-Sayyed Ali in the Hermel district killed two people,” the health ministry said, referring to a location in northeast Lebanon near the Syrian border.
It later reported one person was killed in an Israeli strike in Majdal Selm, in the country’s south.
Separately the Israeli military said it killed Hussein Mahmud Marshad al-Jawhari, “a key terrorist in the operational unit of the Quds Force”, the foreign operations arm of the Revolutionary Guards.
It said he “was involved in terror activities, directed by Iran, against the state of Israel and its security forces” from Lebanon and Syria.
The Israeli military also said it killed “a Hezbollah terrorist” in an area near Majdal Selm.
Under heavy US pressure and fears of expanded Israeli strikes, Lebanon has committed to disarming Hezbollah, starting with the south.
Lebanon’s army plans to complete the disarmament south of the Litani River — about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the border with Israel — by year’s end.
Israel has questioned the Lebanese military’s effectiveness and has accused Hezbollah of rearming, while the group itself has rejected calls to surrender its weapons.
More than 340 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon since the ceasefire, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry reports.
The NNA also reported Thursday that a man wounded in an Israeli strike last week south of Beirut had died of his injuries.
It identified him as a member of Lebanon’s General Security agency and said “he happened to be passing at the time of the strike as he returned from service” in the capital.
The health ministry had said that strike targeted a vehicle on the Shouf district’s Jadra-Siblin road, killing one person and wounding five others.
On Tuesday, Lebanon’s army said a soldier was among those killed in a strike this week and denied the Israeli military’s accusation that he was a Hezbollah operative.
Lebanese army chief Rodolphe Haykal told a military meeting on Tuesday “the army is in the process of finishing the first phase of its plan”.
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