Jerusalem, January 8 (EFE). – The Israeli army continued this Monday its attacks on positions of the Shiite militia Hezbollah in Lebanon, including against a military post belonging to the group, while hostilities and crossfire continued on the Lebanese-Israeli border.
“Israeli forces attacked numerous Hezbollah targets in Lebanon during the night,” a military spokesman said.
The aircraft attacked “a Hezbollah military complex in the Marwahin area” and also targeted a militant and “terrorist infrastructure in the Ayta ash Shab area” with a rocket launcher, the same source added.
On the other hand, yesterday an Israeli unmanned aerial vehicle attacked a projectile launcher in Lebanese territory, and “a helicopter attacked an area from which an anti-tank missile was fired at Israel,” an army statement said.
This morning, he added, militants in Lebanon fired an anti-tank missile at the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona and “in response, troops attacked several areas of Lebanese territory.”
In addition, in new airstrikes this morning, warplanes “attacked a number of Hezbollah terrorist targets,” including “military sites from which terrorists operated.”
Tensions in the region rose sharply last week after an attack attributed to Israel in Beirut that killed Hamas' number two, Saleh Arouri.
This raised alarm bells about the danger that Lebanon and Israel could become embroiled in a broader war that goes beyond the hostilities and exchanges of fire that have been repeated since almost the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
All this has led to more and more countries asking their citizens to leave Lebanon and prompted new diplomatic initiatives from the EU or the United States to contain a possible escalation.
Just yesterday, a message against Hezbollah and the expansion of the Gaza war into Lebanon was shown on screens at Beirut airport in a cyberattack.
In its initial response to Arouri's killing, Hezbollah fired at least 62 projectiles on Saturday at one of the most important intelligence centers in northern Israel.
The Lebanese Shiite group confirmed that five of its fighters were killed by Israeli attacks, including with white phosphorus, on Saturday in a particularly violent day at the border.
The Israeli-Lebanese border is experiencing its highest tension since the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, after aggression by pro-Palestinian militias in Lebanon increased the day after the war broke out in Gaza.
Israel deployed more than 200,000 soldiers to its northern border, where thousands of residents were also forcibly displaced. About 80,000 people were evacuated from communities in northern Israel and more than 70,000 fled southern Lebanon. EFE
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