Violence has escalated at Lebanon’s border with Israel as Hezbollah launched explosive drones and missiles at Israeli positions, and Israeli air strikes rocked several towns and villages in south Lebanon.
An Israeli air strike on the town of Aitaroun destroyed five homes and damaged many more, Ali Hijazi, a local official, said on Sunday.
“Divine intervention prevented anyone from being martyred. Three women and two men were wounded,” he told Reuters news agency.
Senior Hezbollah politician, Hassan Fadlallah, in a statement to Reuters, said Israeli air strikes were a “new escalation” to which the group was responding with new types of attacks, be it “like the weapons [used] or the targeted sites”.
The Israeli army earlier said “suspicious aerial targets” had crossed from Lebanon, and two were intercepted. Two Israeli soldiers were moderately wounded and many others were lightly injured from shrapnel and smoke inhalation, it said.
Israeli fighter jets carried out “an extensive series of strikes on Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanese territory”, it said. Sirens sounded in Israel at several locations at the border.
In Beirut, residents saw what appeared to be two warplanes streaking across a clear blue sky, leaving vapor trails behind them.
The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon is warning the escalation in hostilities along the Israeli border could widen.
Al Jazeera/ News Agencies
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