The cross-border violence since early October has killed some 615 people in Lebanon (File)
Beirut, Lebanon:
An Israeli strike Tuesday on eastern Lebanon killed a Hezbollah commander, a source close to the group and the Israeli military said, with the Iran-backed movement saying it launched rockets in retaliation.
Hezbollah has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces in support of ally Hamas since the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack triggered war in the Gaza Strip, with repeated escalations during more than 11 months of the cross-border violence.
A source close to Hezbollah told AFP that Mohammad Qassem al-Shaer, “a field commander” in the group’s elite Radwan Force, “was targeted in an Israeli strike on a motorcycle in the Bekaa” Valley in Lebanon’s east, far from the Israeli border.
Hezbollah earlier announced Shaer had been killed by Israeli fire, but did not refer to him as a commander.
The Israeli military said its air force “eliminated the terrorist Mohammad Qassem al-Shaer in the area of Qaraoun”, in the Bekaa Valley, referring to him as “a Hezbollah Radwan Force commander”.
Elsewhere, Lebanon’s health ministry said an “Israeli enemy” strike on a building in the southern city of Nabatiyeh wounded 12 people, most of them lightly, revising an earlier toll.
Hezbollah later said it launched “dozens of Katyusha rockets” at two north Israel military positions “in response to the enemy attacks… particularly the assassination the enemy carried out in the Bekaa” Valley and the “targeting of a building”, referring to the Nabatiyeh strike.
The Israeli military said about 45 “projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon”, with some intercepted and no immediate reports of casualties, adding that the air force later struck “Hezbollah launchers” in south Lebanon.
The cross-border violence since early October has killed some 615 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including 138 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, authorities have announced the deaths of at least 24 soldiers and 26 civilians.
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