The Israeli army announced this Tuesday that it had attacked a complex of the Shiite group Hezbollah in the city of Baalbek, in eastern Lebanon, next to the border with Syria.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the attack targeted two buildings inside the complex where a Hezbollah unit in charge of arms trafficking to and from Lebanon operated.
Israel also confirmed that it had attacked what it called “terrorist targets” on the outskirts of the city of Aitaroun, in the south of the country.
“The attacks occurred in response to the destruction of an Israeli army drone operating in the skies over Lebanon” on Monday, a military statement said.
The attack caused the deaths of five people, including three Syrians who worked with Hezbollah, said the non-governmental organization (NGO) Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The NGO’s director, Rami Abdel Rahmane, told the France-Presse news agency that the attack hit a caravan of tanker trucks transporting fuel from Syria to Lebanon.
The organization, based in the United Kingdom but which has a vast network of sources in Syria, added that five other people were injured and that two people remain missing.
Hezbollah announced on Monday that it had shot down an Israeli Hermes drone “equipped with missiles that was preparing to carry out attacks” over Lebanon, the fifth since February.
The response from the Lebanese Islamist movement came in the middle of the afternoon, in an attack with two drones that fell north of the Golã Heights, causing a fire near the community of Sha’al.
The border between Israel and Lebanon has been the scene of an escalation of violence, which has already caused 482 deaths, since the attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli soil on October 8, something that raised fears of an open war.
“We are prepared for very strong action in the north”, threatened Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, during a visit to troops deployed on the border with Lebanon.
