Hezbollah said one of its senior commanders was killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon, and the Iran-backed militant group retaliated with a barrage of rockets into Israel.
Mohammed Nimah Nasser is the latest senior Hezbollah member to be targeted by Israel in nearly nine months of cross-border violence that has raised fears of all-out war.
Hezbollah said it had launched 100 rockets and missiles at Israeli military positions “as part of a response to the assassination”. The Israeli military said some of the shells landed in open areas, causing fires, but no casualties were reported.
The military said Nasser commanded Hezbollah’s Aziz Unit, which is responsible for launching rockets from south-west Lebanon, and accused him of directing “a large number of terrorist attacks”.
The article also described him as the “equivalent” of Taleb Sami Abdullah, the commander of another unit whose killing last month prompted Hezbollah to launch more than 200 missiles and rockets into northern Israel in a single day.
Since then, there have been a series of diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions, with the United Nations and the United States warning of the potentially catastrophic consequences of a war that could draw in Iran and other allied groups.
There has been near-daily gunfire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the day after the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza began on October 7.
Hezbollah said it was acting in support of a Palestinian group that is also backed by Iran. Both groups are considered terrorist organizations by Israel, Britain and other countries.
In recent weeks, Israeli officials have repeatedly warned that they will use force to restore security along the northern border if diplomacy fails.
“We are hitting Hezbollah very hard every day and we will also reach a state of full readiness to take any action that is required in Lebanon, or to reach an agreement from a position of strength,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday. “We would like an agreement, but if reality forces us, we will know how to fight.”
Hezbollah, a heavily armed force long seen as a significantly stronger foe than Hamas, has said it does not want a full-scale war with Israel and would abide by any ceasefire in Gaza in Lebanon.
“Israel can decide what it wants: limited war, total war, local war,” the group’s deputy leader, Naim Qassem, said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday. “But they should expect that our response and resistance will not be within the limits and rules of engagement set by Israel.”
So far, more than 400 people have been reported killed in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters, and 25 in Israel, mostly soldiers.
Tens of thousands of people from communities on both sides of the border have also been displaced.
