UPDATE - 1 killed as Israel bombs southern Lebanese towns

UPDATES WITH ISRAELI, HEZBOLLAH STATEMENTS

By Anadolu staff

BEIRUT (AA) - At least one Lebanese man was killed Saturday in two Israeli airstrikes on the towns of Kafr Shuba and Shebaa in southern Lebanon.

"The Israeli occupation aircraft carried out two raids today at dawn on the towns of Kafr Shuba and Shebaa, which led to the martyrdom of citizen Qasim Asaad in the town of Kafr Shuba and the destruction of two homes," the Lebanese National News Agency reported.

The Israeli army said on Saturday that it bombed Hezbollah targets in five areas in southern Lebanon overnight.

Fighter planes targeted a building belonging to Hezbollah, the army said in a statement.

In Rihan area, Israeli jets pounded a military building for Hezbollah, it added.

Israeli warplanes also bombed a Hezbollah military building in Kafr Shuba, the statement further said.

The Lebanese group Hezbollah announced Saturday that two of its members were killed in southern Lebanon without providing details.

Hezbollah also stated that it targeted “new sites of (Israeli) enemy soldiers west of the Shomera settlement with missiles."

Israeli media reported on Saturday that sirens sounded in the Shomera area in the Western Galilee area in northern Israel.

Tensions have escalated along Lebanon’s border with Israel since the Israeli army launched a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, amid an exchange of cross-border fire between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in the deadliest clashes since the two sides had fought a full-scale war in 2006.

*Writing by Ikram Kouachi