4 killed as Israel launches ‘extensive wave of attacks’ on southern Lebanon
The Israeli military has launched new airstrikes on Lebanon as tensions remain high along Lebanon’s southern border where the Hezbollah resistance movement and Israeli forces keep exchanging fire on a daily basis.
Israeli fighter jets “began an extensive wave of attacks in Lebanese territory” on Wednesday afternoon, the Israeli military confirmed in a statement on X, formerly Twitter.
Initial reports of strikes emerged from several areas across the southern Nabatiyeh province.
Lebanon’s civil defense said at least four people were killed and 11 wounded in two Israeli air raids on the towns of Souaneh and Adshit, in southern Lebanon.
One woman and her two children were killed in Souaneh, while one person was killed in Adshit, it said.
Hezbollah said in a statement that a man killed in the Israeli airstrike was a member of the resistance group. The resistance fighter was identified as 26-year-old Hassan Ali Najm.
Israeli minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant recently warned that Tel Aviv is prepared for a war that will be “devastating” for both Hezbollah and Lebanon.
However, reports say the US government, Israel’s main backer, has been trying to prevent an expansion of the Gaza war to Lebanon.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati last month warned that any escalation in southern Lebanon will lead to a “comprehensive explosion” in the region.
A Press TV correspondent from Lebanon reported on Wednesday that it was a pretty busy day for Hezbollah as it carried out several operations against Israel targeting soldiers and military bases.
The Lebanese resistance movement also targeted an Israeli military base in Shebaa farms, using a new type of missile.
Footage from Lebanon circulating on social media a series of Israeli air raids on many towns in the south of the country, including areas in the Nabatieh governorate.
The strikes on southern villages, including Adchit, Sawwaneh and Shihabiyeh, occurred deeper inside the country than most previous strikes, raising fears of a new escalation.
Hezbollah has warned it would expand the anti-Israel front in the south if the occupying regime escalated its acts of aggression against the Lebanese territory and the Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire since early October, shortly after the occupying regime launched its genocidal war on besieged Gaza following a surprise operation by the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement.
Hezbollah’s constant rocket fire has prompted tens of thousands of Israeli settlers to flee from northern areas of the occupied territories.
Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in a televised speech on Tuesday said hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers already displaced from the north of the occupied territories would not be able to return to settlements in case of an escalation.
A Lebanese lawmaker from the Hezbollah resistance movement warns of retaliation if Israel oversteps the limits.
The Hezbollah chief said it was a “moral and religious” duty shouldered by the Lebanese resistance movement to strike the Israeli-occupied territories in support of the Palestinians in Gaza.
Hezbollah has vowed to keep up its retaliatory operations as long as the usurping entity continues its aggression against Gaza, which has so far killed more than 28,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured over 67,984 others.
