Israel and Hezbollah traded fire on Friday after the US and its allies failed to bring an end to clashes that have killed more than 700 people in Lebanon this week, Middle East media reported.
Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said 25 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since early Friday morning. An Israeli airstrike on Friday killed five Syrian soldiers near the border with Lebanon, the official SANA news agency reported, citing a military source.
“The Israeli enemy carried out an aerial attack … on one of our military positions near Kfar Yabus on the Syrian-Lebanese border,” SANA quoted the source as saying, adding that another soldier was wounded.
The raid came a day after the Israeli army said its warplanes struck “infrastructure along the Syrian-Lebanese border used by Hezbollah to transfer weapons from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Israeli warplanes struck a checkpoint connecting Syria’s Syria’s Al-Qusayr neighbourhood to Lebanon, resulting in “several injuries.”
The Britain-based organisation, which relies on a network of sources on the ground, said it was the first such strike on Syria since Israel stepped up its attacks on Lebanon’s Hezbollah this week.
Exchange of fire and more casualties
Nine people from the same family in the southern Lebanese border town of Shebaa were also killed in an Israeli strike on Friday, Shebaa Mayor Mohammad Saab said. Four children were among those killed in Shebaa.
A few hours later, Hezbollah said its forces fired a salvo of rockets at the Israeli town of Tiberias on Friday. Hezbollah said in a statement that it was responding to Israel’s “brutal” strikes on Lebanese towns and civilians.
About 118,000 people have been displaced from their homes in Lebanon since Monday as a result of the fighting, according to the UN. More than 30,000 people have crossed into Syria in the past 72 hours. On Friday, the UN called the escalation of Israeli attacks on Lebanon “catastrophic,” warning that the country was facing its deadliest period in years.
Israel to receive new military aid package from US
Meanwhile, Israel said on Thursday it will receive a military aid package totalling $8.7 billion from the US.
The package coincides with the fourth consecutive day of massive Israeli strikes on Lebanon, described as the largest since the 2006 Lebanon war.
“Director-General of the Israeli Ministry of Defence, Major-General Eyal Zamir, has concluded negotiations in Washington for a substantial $8.7 billion US aid package to support Israel’s ongoing military efforts,” the Israeli Ministry of Defence said in a statement.
The package includes $3.5 billion for major wartime purchases, which have already been transferred to the IMoD (Israel Ministry of Defence), and $5.2 billion for air defence systems. Israel has several missile interception systems, including David’s Sling, Arrow and Iron Dome.
Despite polls showing that more than half of Americans believe that military aid to Israel should be limited, Washington continues to provide significant military aid to Tel Aviv.
Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the start of the Israeli offensive on Gaza, which killed more than 41,500 people, mostly women and children, following a cross-border attack by Hamas on October 7 last year.
