BEIRUT: Two people were killed on Saturday in southern Lebanon in an Israeli airstrike that hit their vehicle on the Burj Al-Chamali road in the village of Al-Bazourieh.
The attack follows the death of several Iranian leaders in an Israeli raid that targeted a civilian building in a neighborhood in Damascus on Saturday morning.
Several passersby were also injured and transported to the village’s hospitals.
Security reports state that one of the victims was Ali Mohammed Hodroj from Al-Bazourieh.
BACKGROUND
Israel has been carrying out airstrikes on southern Lebanon against militant groups based there as well as Hezbollah, which have fired rockets across the border at Israel.
According to media reports, he was a leader in the Palestine branch operating under the Quds Force in the east of Tyre in Lebanon.
He reportedly played the role of a liaison officer between the Quds Force and Hezbollah in the cooperation between Hamas and the Iranian axis in the areas of cyberwarfare and air defense.
Russian TV channel RT Arabic announced that its press staff survived the airstrike.
A security source in the south told Arab News that the incident is “an unprecedented escalatory strike in 105 days of ongoing hostilities on the southern front.”
He added: “Al-Bazourieh is 4 km from Tyre and is the hometown of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. The road where the car was targeted links Tyre to the border village of Bint Jbeil.”
Israeli drones had previously hit several targets in the Qlaileh valley, which is 7 km from Tyre.
However, Saturday’s airstrike is considered a deep incursion into inhabited areas, as it hit a well-trafficked road.
The source said that “Israel has a list of targets and doesn’t miss a chance to strike whenever possible.”
Confrontations between Hezbollah and the Israeli army in the south have been violent since Saturday morning.
Israeli shelling targeted southern villages and houses.
A drone carried out a strike in Marwahin, hitting a house that had been targeted many times before.
Artillery shelling targeted the outskirts of the towns of Yarine, Chihine, Jebbayn, Tayr Harfa, Aita Al-Shaab and Al-Dhayra.
Israeli warplanes also raided the town of Odaisseh.
According to Israeli media, Israel has raised the alert level on the northern front.
Hezbollah meanwhile announced in its statements that it had targeted a gathering of Israeli soldiers in the vicinity of Hunin Castle with missile weapons, achieving a direct hit.
It also targeted “a gathering of Israeli soldiers in the vicinity of the Al-Dhayra site, causing confirmed casualties.”
The party added that it “targeted Israeli soldiers in the vicinity of the Zar’it barracks and achieved a direct hit.”
The Israeli army continued to comb Lebanese villages and forests adjacent to them with its heavy machine guns.
Its heavy artillery fired dozens of shells on the outskirts of Ramyah, Naqoura, the Labouneh Mountains, Al-Alam, and Al-Dhayra. At the same time, its planes raided the outskirts of the village of Aita Al-Shaab.
From Friday night until Saturday morning, reconnaissance aircraft stayed in the airspace above the Litani River, the villages of the western and central sectors, and the outskirts of the Tyre region and the seacoast.
Light bombs were dropped over the villages of the Tyre district, the seacoast, and above the Blue Line.
Hezbollah’s Al-Manar channel published the contents of a message from Nasrallah at an international forum on Gaza held in Tehran.
He said: “What Israel has lost to date in Gaza in terms of officers and soldiers at the hands of Palestinian resistance groups exceeds by far its losses in the 1967 war.”
Nasrallah believes that the Israeli army “is being defeated today in part of the Gaza Strip and is unable to achieve a goal, declare an occupation, or come close to victory. Rather, it is retreating and withdrawing under the pretext of moving to a new stage.”
The Hezbollah chief claims that betting on international institutions and the so-called international community has been unsuccessful, producing nothing but frustration.
“These international institutions are dependent on the will of the US administration,” Nasrallah said.
On Saturday, Hezbollah mourned the death of Hodroj, the liaison officer from the town of Al-Bazourieh in southern Lebanon, “who rose as a martyr on the road to Jerusalem.”
The border town of Al-Tibiya mourned Mohammed Baqir Diab, who was also killed in the raid.
