Smoke billows after an Israeli strike on the southern Lebanese border village of Tayr Harfa on April 6, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Israel’s military said on April 7 its warplanes had struck Hezbollah sites in eastern Lebanon, where the Iran-backed group has a strong presence, in retaliation for one of its drones being downed.

A source close to Hezbollah said in eastern Lebanon’s Baalbek region that the strikes targeted Janta and Sifri in the Bekaa Valley, around 80 km from the closest Israeli frontier.

The Israeli military said on Telegram that “fighter jets struck a military complex and three other terrorist infrastructure sites belonging to Hezbollah’s air defence network” in the region.

It said the strikes were “in retaliation for the attack” in which an Army “drone was shot down” by a surface-to-air missile on April 6.

A source from Lebanon’s civil defence said there were no casualties.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily cross-border fire since Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in Gaza.

Hamas ally Hezbollah generally targets Israeli positions close to the border, while Israel has carried out deeper raids into Lebanese territory, also targeting commanders from the Shia Muslim militant group.

Hezbollah announced it had shot down an Israeli Hermes 900 drone over Lebanese territory on Saturday evening, after initially identifying it as a Hermes 450.

On April 7, the group said it fired “dozens of Katyusha rockets” at two Israeli bases “in response to the enemy’s attacks on the Bekaa area”.

‘Hangar’ targeted

Sifri is located in the Bekaa Valley plain, while nearby Janta is an arid mountainous region closer to the border with Syria.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said the target of the Israeli strikes in Sifri was a “hangar”.

Israel launched similar strikes against Hezbollah targets in the Bekaa Valley in February after the group said it had shot down another Israeli drone.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech on April 5 that his movement had not yet used its “main” weapons, and reiterated that Hezbollah would cease its attacks only when the war in Gaza ends.

The cross-border hostilities have killed at least 359 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters, but also at least 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

The fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people in southern Lebanon and in northern Israel, where the military says 10 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed.

On April 6, the Risala Scout association, which is affiliated with the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement and operates emergency teams in south Lebanon, said a rescuer had died.

An official from the group told AFP he had been wounded days earlier in south Lebanon.

Separately, the NNA reported that a woman wounded previously in an “enemy drone” strike in the border village of Yarin had also died of her wounds.

The hostilities have raised fears of all-out conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, which last went to war in 2006.

People stand next to the rubble at the site of an Israeli air strike in the vicinity of Baalbek city in the central Bekaa plain on February 26, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza. Israel struck Hezbollah targets near the city of Baalbek on February 26, killing two group members, security sources said, the first such attack on Lebanon’s east since hostilities began after the Gaza war erupted
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Israeli military said its air force on February 26 struck targets of the militant Hezbollah group “deep inside Lebanon”, where residents reported explosions near the northeastern city of Baalbek. At least two people were killed in the strikes, a Hezbollah official said.

The strikes are among the deepest into Lebanon since the Israel-Hamas war began more than four months ago. They come a day after Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant vowed to step up attacks on Lebanon’s Hezbollah even if a cease-fire is reached with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The strikes, which came shortly after Hezbollah said its air defence shot down an Israeli drone, are likely to increase tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border as talks for a cease-fire in Gaza are underway.

Lebanese security officials said Israel’s air force carried out three airstrikes on the outskirts of the village of Buday, near Baalbek, targeting a convoy of trucks. Buday is a Hezbollah stronghold.

A Hezbollah official confirmed that three strikes hit near Baalbek. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to reporters.

He said the strikes killed at least two people and that one hit a warehouse for food products that is part of Hezbollah’s Sajjad Project that sells to people in its stronghold at prices lower than on the market.

The airstrikes near Baalbek occurred less than two hours after Hezbollah said its fighters on Monday shot down an Israeli Elbit Hermes 450 drone over its stronghold in a province in southern Lebanon. Another missile fired by Hezbollah toward the drone was intercepted by Israel, and landed near a synagogue in a town close to Nazareth in northern Israel. There were no injuries or damage.

The Israeli Army said in a statement later in the day that its fighter jets struck sites used by Hezbollah in the eastern Bekaa Valley. It said they were in retaliation for Hezbollah’s firing of a surface-to-air missile at the Israeli drone.

Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israeli troops along the border since the Israel-Hamas broke on October 7.

The strike on Baalbek, because of its location deep inside Lebanon, is the most significant one since the early January airstrike on Beirut that killed top Hamas official Saleh Arouri.

Hezbollah, which has been exchanging fire with Israel throughout the war in Gaza, has said it will halt its near-daily attacks on Israel if a cease-fire is reached in Gaza. Hezbollah is an ally of the Palestinain militant Hamas group.

However, Gallant, the Israeli Defence Minister, said on February 25 that anyone who thinks a temporary cease-fire for Gaza will also apply to the northern front is “mistaken”.

Western diplomats have brought forward a series of proposals for a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, most of which would hinge on Hezbollah moving its forces 7-10 kilometres (4-6 miles) away from the border.

This will come in addition to a beefed-up Lebanese Army presence, and negotiations for Israeli forces to withdraw from disputed points along the border where Lebanon says Israel has been occupying small patches of Lebanese territory since it withdrew from the rest of country’s south in 2000.

Lebanon’s caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bouhabib said on Monday that he discussed with the country’s Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, a French proposal about the southern region, adding that the Lebanese side is working on a response that the French should have by next week.

“We welcome the French role,” Mr. Bouhabib said, adding that Lebanon wants a solution that includes the disputed Chebaa Farms and Kfar Chouba hills that Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war. Beirut says the disputed area belongs to Lebanon and Israel should withdraw from there.

Hezbollah has signalled willingness to entertain the proposals but has said there will be no deal in Lebanon before there is a cease-fire in Gaza.