Cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah intensifies

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At least eight people were injured after an Israeli drone fired several missiles at a residential building in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh on Tuesday afternoon, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.
Videos published online showed the entire fifth floor of the building blown out. The Israeli army did not comment on the attack and it was not known whether any Hezbollah members were in the building at the time of the strike.
Nabatieh, which lies only 14km from Israel, remains well-populated despite regular cross-border violence since October. Ten civilians were killed in an Israeli strike on a residential building in the area last month.
The attack on Nabatieh mirrored that of Hezbollah’s the previous day, when the Iran-backed group launched a volley of drones into northern Israel – one of which hit a residential tower block in the coastal city of Nahariyya. It is not a typical target of attack for Hezbollah, which has mostly limited forays to within a few kilometres of Israel’s border area.
The attack on the building in Nabatieh followed the assassination of a Hezbollah commander earlier in the day who was killed on his motorbike as he was driving in the western Bekaa Valley. Hezbollah later identified him as Mohammas Qassem Al Shaer but did not clarify his position within the group.
Israel announced Mr Al Shaer’s death and identified him as a “commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force in southern Lebanon”. Two civilians were injured in the strike in Bekaa.
Hezbollah retaliated by targeting an Israeli artillery position belonging to a battalion in the northern Neve Zeve area and fired “dozens” of Katyusha rockets at a headquarters used by Israel’s Golani Brigade in the Mount Neria area. The group said its attacks were in response to Israel’s assassination of Mr Al Shaer and the strikes on the building in Nabatieh.
Tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border have been displaced since the hostilities began, with little hope of returning until a ceasefire is reached. In Lebanon, 615 people – the vast majority of whom are fighters but at least 138 civilians – have been killed by Israeli bombardment since October.
On the Israeli side, including in the occupied Golan Heights, the army says at least 24 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed.