By Deutsche Welle
03 Jul 2024, 19:30 PM EDT
Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant movement said Wednesday it fired 100 rockets at two Israeli positions in retaliation for the killing of one of its top commanders in southern Lebanon in a bombing the Shiite movement blamed on Israel.
Hezbollah has been clashing with Israeli forces for months on the border with Israel, in order to support its Palestinian ally Hamas in the conflict against the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip.
100 Katyusha rockets
Hezbollah announced the death of “Commander Mohammed Naameh Nasser” and reported the death of a second fighter.
The movement said that “as part of the response to the attack and killing perpetrated by the enemy,” its fighters attacked “with 100 Katyusha rockets” two Israeli positions in the Golan Heights, a Syrian territory annexed by Israel.
95 civilians killed
Hezbollah also claimed another Falaq rocket attack on a base in northern Israel.
Attacks on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border have killed at least 495 people in Lebanon in more than eight months, most of them fighters but also some 95 civilians, according to an AFP news agency tally based on data from the Shiite movement and official Lebanese sources.
On the Israeli side, at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed, according to authorities. Tens of thousands of residents on both sides of the border have been displaced by the fighting.
Commander dies in bombing
A commander of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah was killed on Wednesday when an Israeli drone struck the vehicle he was travelling in in the Al Housh area in southern Lebanon, Lebanese sources and the Israeli army confirmed.
The Israeli military confirmed the attack shortly afterward, saying in a statement that Naser had been collaborating with Hezbollah since 2016 and had been carrying out the firing of rockets and anti-tank missiles from southwestern Lebanon into Israel.
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