Lebanese terror group Hezbollah fired anti-tank guided missiles at an Israeli army post on the northern border on Wednesday.
The Israel Defence Forces said a drone strike on the Hezbollah post was carried out in response, as fighting continued in southern Israel following a devastating attack by Palestinian terror group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Over the past few days, there have been several bloody clashes along the northern border. Palestinian terrorist groups operating in Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon have claimed responsibility for the armed incidents, while Hezbollah itself has claimed responsibility for others.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for an anti-tank guided missile attack on an Israeli military post near the northern Israeli village of Arab al-Aramsheh. The group says the attack was in response to the deaths of three of its members in Israeli strikes on Monday, which were carried out in retaliation for earlier clashes along the border. Hezbollah said the rocket attack killed “a large number of confirmed casualties”.
The IDF said a drone struck a Hezbollah post in southern Lebanon and artillery fired at the source of the rocket fire.
On Tuesday evening, an unoccupied IDF armoured personnel carrier was blown up by an anti-tank missile fired by Hezbollah on the border with Lebanon. The attack was preceded by an artillery barrage of 15 rockets fired into the Western Galilee from Lebanon. Gaza-based Hamas later claimed responsibility for the rocket fire from Lebanon. The IDF said it hit three Hezbollah posts in response to the rocket fire and anti-tank missile attack on Tuesday.
Three Israeli soldiers and two terrorists of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group were killed on Monday in clashes between the Israeli army and terrorists on the border with Lebanon. Three Hezbollah members were killed in retaliatory Israeli bombardment of the terrorist group’s facilities. Rockets were also fired from Lebanon into Israel on Sunday and Monday.
Hezbollah has not previously taken part in clashes between Israel and Palestinian terrorist groups, although it has not banned local Palestinian groups from operating from its territory in southern Lebanon.
According to some reports, Israel is trying to censor information about the clashes on the Lebanese border as much as possible, probably in order to prevent further growth of Arab solidarity in neighboring states with the actions of Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north. The very fact of the movement joining the actions of Hamas could provoke the growth of the conflict and the involvement of new players in it, including Iran.
The military has strengthened its positions in northern Israel, suggesting that the Lebanon-based terror group will open a second front in a war sparked by Saturday’s surprise incursion into Israel by hundreds of Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip.
Most residents of Lebanon’s border area with Israel have fled their homes for fear of more shelling. Wednesday’s rocket attack on Lebanon came amid continued hundreds of rocket attacks on southern and central Israel from the Gaza Strip.
