Two soldiers were seriously wounded and seven others were moderately hurt during clashes with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on Friday and overnight into Saturday, Israel Defense Forces said, as the terror group continued to pound northern Israel with rocket and drone attacks.
In an incident on Friday, two officers were injured by anti-tank missile fire during an engagement with Hezbollah operatives. One of the soldiers was seriously wounded and the second was moderately injured, the military said.
In a separate incident overnight, an officer was seriously wounded and six troops were moderately hurt by Hezbollah rocket fire in southern Lebanon.
Four soldiers have been killed in Israeli operations inside Lebanon since hostilities resumed when the terror group began firing at Israel in response to the latter’s killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah continued to fire rockets at northern Israel, sending residents running for shelter.
In addition, at least two Hezbollah drones launched from Lebanon at northern Israel were intercepted by air defenses, according to the IDF. The drones triggered sirens across northern Israel, including in the Haifa Bay area. There were no reports of injuries.
Also Saturday, the IDF said it killed two top members of Hezbollah’s communications unit in a strike in Beirut overnight.
The strike in the Lebanese capital killed Ayyoub Hussein Yaacoub and Yasser Mohammad Mubarak, both senior members of the unit, which the military has said is responsible for “maintaining communication continuity” within Hezbollah and overseeing “the development, maintenance, and use of communication systems” used by the terror group.
The military said Yaacoub previously served in a senior role in Hezbollah’s rocket unit and was behind numerous attacks on Israel, while Mubarak held a position in the rocket unit alongside his role in the communications unit.
The strike came as the IDF said the Israeli Air Force and Israeli Navy hit dozens of Hezbollah sites across Lebanon overnight, including as part of support for ground troops operating in the south of the country.
The targets included weapon depots, rocket launchers, and buildings used by Hezbollah, the military said.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported “a series of strikes” at dawn on the town of Majdal Selm and “successive strikes” on the towns of Kafra, Hanniyeh, Touline, and Adloun. It added that several Israeli strikes also targeted the city of Nabatieh, hitting “residential and commercial buildings and a fuel station.”
At the same time, the agency reported strikes on border towns, particularly Taybeh, along with “an attempt by enemy forces to advance toward the Litani area.”
As the IDF has pushed forces into southern Lebanon, the military also said it has identified that Hezbollah is launching most of its rocket attacks on Israel from deeper within the country, including from areas north of the Litani River.
Hezbollah’s intensified rocket fire, which has targeted areas in Israel beyond the northern border communities, has killed two Israeli civilians and wounded dozens more. In addition, another civilian was mistakenly killed in the north by IDF artillery shelling.
The IDF believes Hezbollah still possesses thousands of short-range rockets, along with hundreds of longer-range projectiles, and has said that Hezbollah is launching most of its attacks from deeper within southern Lebanon, and not from close to the border.
The IDF said Friday that it has killed at least 770 Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon since hostilities resumed, including hundreds of members of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force.
The number only includes operatives that Israeli intelligence officers have definitively identified, meaning the true number of dead Hezbollah fighters is likely higher, IDF officials said.
According to a Friday statement by Lebanese authorities, Israeli strikes on the country in the same time period have killed at least 1,142 people, including 122 children, in tallies that do not differentiate between combatants and civilians.
Source:
www.timesofisrael.com
