BEIRUT (Reuters) – The armed Lebanese group Hezbollah said on Monday it had launched a squadron of drones towards the headquarters of the Israeli military’s Galilee formation.
Such an attack would be the first by Hezbollah involving a squadron of drones since the start of its exchanges of fire with Israel, which have run in parallel with the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
There was no immediate comment by the Israeli military on the report, but sirens sounded in northern Israel three times on Monday to warn of attacks from Lebanon.
The Israeli military said in a statement it had on Monday killed Ali Hussein Sabra, a military operative in “Hezbollah’s Force Build-up Unit”.
It also said its forces had struck Hezbollah infrastructure consisting of several military compounds in the area of Qotrani in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah said its squadron attack came in response to Israel’s killing of one of its members in the southern village of Zrariyeh.
The Iran-aligned group also said it had launched drones on Sunday towards Liman in northern Israel.
Lebanon’s southern border has seen an uptick in hostilities in recent days, with both the Israeli military and Hezbollah striking locations outside the border strip where the exchanges of fire have been concentrated, and with increased intensity.
On Sunday, Israeli strikes killed two civilian men from the town of Houla, where they had stayed throughout the conflict to herd their cattle, security sources and townspeople told Reuters. They were buried on Monday in their hometown.
Israeli warplanes flew low over Beirut on Monday, according to residents.
(Reporting by Laila Bassam in Beirut, Jana Choukeir in Dubai, Dan Williams, Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Peter Graff and Timothy Heritage)