UPDATE - 3 more Hezbollah fighters killed in border clashes with Israel

CHANGES NUMBERS OF DEATHS TO 3 HEALIINE, LEDE

By Wassim Saifeddine

BEIRUT (AA) - Hezbollah announced Thursday the death of three members in the ongoing confrontations with the Israeli army in southern Lebanon.

The new fatalities brought to 279 Hezbollah fighters killed in clashes with Israeli forces since Oct. 8, 2023, according to an Anadolu tally.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah's attacks on northern Israel resulted in 14 soldiers being injured, some seriously, according to a statement from the Israeli army.

Hezbollah said in a statement that “its elements targeted an Israeli enemy force while it was attempting to withdraw the military vehicle that was targeted yesterday, at the Metula site, with appropriate weapons, causing confirmed injuries.”

Meanwhile, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that Israeli reconnaissance aircraft “intensified their flights at night and until the early hours of the morning over villages in the Tyre district, the coastal area, and over villages in the western sector.”

In the early morning hours, gunfire was reported from the outskirts of the villages of Zahajra, Al-Bustan, and Aytat al-Shaab from Israeli positions in Birket Riche and from sites adjacent to the Blue Line in the western and central sectors, according to the news agency.

It also mentioned that the town of Khiam was subjected to intense airstrikes by Israeli warplanes after midnight, accompanied by concentrated shelling with phosphorus shells on the town.

Tension has flared along the border between Lebanon and Israel amid intermittent exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, in the deadliest clashes since the two sides fought a full-scale war in 2006.

The border tension comes amid an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip that has killed nearly 33,900 people following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7 last year.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala and Ahmed Asmar