The border between Israel and Lebanon is again under high tension after new shootings were announced on Sunday by armed groups including the Palestinian Hamas and the powerful Hezbollah, followed by an infiltration attempt by Islamic Jihad.
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The new violence came as Hamas said on Sunday it was waging “violent battles” against the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip.
On the night of Sunday to Monday, the Al-Quds Brigades, the military branch of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad whose fighters are present in Lebanon, announced on its Telegram channel that two of its members were killed in Hanita, northern Israel He managed to “overcome the security barrier” that separated Lebanon from Israel and “confront the Israeli enemy.”
Since the war between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip began on October 7, there have been almost daily exchanges of fire in the area between the Israeli army and pro-Palestinian armed groups, including the Lebanese Hezbollah.
Early Sunday evening, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, said it had fired “16 rockets at Nahariya” in Israel’s western Galilee region “in response to the occupation’s crimes against our people.” Gaza Strip.
The armed wing of Jamaa Islamiya, which is close to the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, also declared that it had fired “missiles” at Kiryat Shmona, according to the official Lebanese press agency (Ani).
Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, said it shot down an Israeli drone over Israeli territory with a surface-to-air missile and attacked several Israeli army positions.
The pro-Iranian party also announced the death of one of its fighters on Sunday.
The Israeli army, for its part, reported new fire from Lebanon towards the Har Dov and Kiryat Shmona areas and said it returned fire towards the source of the fire.
According to Ani, the country’s air force also carried out several airstrikes on border towns in southern Lebanon.
Since Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel, at least 59 people have been killed in Lebanon in gun battles on the Lebanese-Israeli border, according to an AFP count, most of them Hezbollah fighters, but also four civilians, including a journalist.
In Israel, the army reported four deaths, including a civilian.
According to the International Organization for Migration, the shooting in Lebanon has displaced nearly 29,000 people amid fears of a wildfire at the border.