Israeli army targets Hezbollah facility in southern Lebanon

By Said Amori

JERUSALEM (AA) – The Israeli army announced Thursday that it targeted a military facility in southern Lebanon belonging to the Hezbollah group.

Hezbollah later said it targeted two Israeli barracks with dozens of rockets in response to the targeting of a residential building earlier in the day in the town of Kfar Roummane.

The army said it attacked “a military building affiliated with the Hezbollah organization after observing armed individuals inside.”

The statement came following Hezbollah's announcement of the killing of two of its fighters by the Israeli army, bringing the death toll to 208 since Oct. 8.

The Israeli army added that its reconnaissance assets “spotted armed individuals entering a building affiliated with the Hezbollah organization in the Blida area (of southern Lebanon), and fighter jets were scrambled to attack the building where the militants were located.”

“During the day, artillery fire was launched to eliminate threats in several areas of southern Lebanon,” it added.

The statement noted that “during the past few hours, several rocket launches towards the Zar'it and Metula areas (of northern Israel) were observed, where the army attacked the sources of fire.”

Hezbollah said in a statement that its forces “targeted the Yuval barracks (in northern Israel) with Katyusha rockets and also targeted the Keila barracks (in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights) with dozens of Katyusha rockets and directly hit them."

The group emphasized that the shelling of the two barracks came “in response to Israeli attacks on towns and civilian homes, the latest of which was in Kfar Roummane.”

Earlier in the day, two people were killed and three others were injured as a result of Israeli shelling targeting a residential building in the town of Kfar Roummane near the city of Nabatieh, according to eyewitnesses who spoke to Anadolu.

Against the backdrop of the destructive Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, which led Israel to face charges of genocide before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the Israeli-Lebanese border has witnessed exchanges of fire since Oct. 8 last year between the Israeli army on one side and Hezbollah and Palestinian factions on the other, resulting in fatalities and injuries on both sides of the border.

Recently, there have been escalating threats from Israeli officials to expand the attacks on Lebanese territory unless Hezbollah fighters withdraw from the border areas with northern Israel.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala