Photo: A Lebanese army soldier secures the site of an Israeli strike in Lebanon’s southern area of Tyre. (File photo: AFP)
Two Lebanese army soldiers were killed in separate Israeli strikes on south Lebanon on Thursday, the military said as Hezbollah said it repelled Israeli troops trying to cross the border.
The army said in a statement that a soldier was killed in an Israeli strike on a military post in the Bint Jbeil area, adding that soldiers fired back at the source of the fire.
A military official told AFP that this was the first response to Israeli fire since last October because the post had been “directly” hit.
It was the second Lebanese soldier to be killed by Israeli strikes on Thursday.
The army had announced earlier in the day that a soldier “was killed and another was wounded as a result of an aggression by the Israeli enemy during an evacuation and rescue operation with the Lebanese Red Cross in Taybeh village.”
This brings the total of army soldiers killed to three since the start of the escalation between the Iran-backed group and Israel on September 23.
On Monday, the army said that one of its soldiers was killed in an Israeli drone strike targeting a motorbike passing through a checkpoint in the Wazzani area in south Lebanon.
Hezbollah earlier said it fought off two bids by the Israeli army to infiltrate Lebanese territory, including one not far from Taybeh.
The Iran-backed militant group said it “repelled with artillery fire an attempt by enemy Israeli forces to advance at Fatima’s Gate” – a point on the cement and barbed wire wall running along the border.
Hezbollah also said it set off “explosive devices” at dawn against an Israeli ground forces attempting to infiltrate near town of Maroun al-Ras, farther to the west.
It said it fired a barrage of rockets at the Israeli city of Tiberias, in response to the Israeli bombardment of Lebanese “towns, villages and civilians.”
Al Arabiya/ AFP
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