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Israel said it carried out air strikes on “military buildings” used by the militant group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said four people were killed in an attack on a house in the town of Maifadoun, about 30 kilometers from the Israeli border.
Security sources told AFP the four men were Hezbollah militants, which responded by launching a drone attack on a northern Israeli town, wounding two people.
Currently, tensions are rising between Israel and Hezbollah and Iran, which supports Hezbollah.
Last week, an Israeli airstrike killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut in what Israeli officials described as an “intelligence-based elimination operation.”
Israeli officials say he launched a rocket attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights last month that killed 12 children and teenagers. Hezbollah has denied involvement in the attack.
Hours after Shukur’s assassination, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in the Iranian capital, Tehran — an attack Iran blamed on Israel.
Hezbollah and Iran have vowed to retaliate for the attack, raising concerns that the tit-for-tat actions could ignite a wider regional conflict.
Several countries, including the United States, have urged their citizens to leave Lebanon as soon as possible. Lebanon’s foreign minister said on Tuesday he was working to ensure Hezbollah’s response to Shoukr’s death did not trigger a major escalation.
The IDF said in a statement on social media that the Israeli attack on Maifadun was carried out by fighter jets and directed by intelligence agencies. The military was assisted by officials from Israel’s internal security agency Shin Bet and military intelligence agency Amman.
In response, Hezbollah launched what it called a “drone swarm” at Israel, wounding two people in the northern town of Mazra. But a source in the group told Reuters the attack was not in response to Shukr’s death.
US President Joe Biden met with his senior national security team on Monday As concerns grow about retaliatory attacks on Israel.
Biden said he had been briefed on preparations to support Israel if it came under attack, while Secretary of State Antony Blinken said officials were working “around the clock” to prevent an escalation.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk called on “all parties and influential states to take urgent action to de-escalate what has become a very dangerous situation.”
elsewhere, Several American soldiers were injured The rocket attack on the Ain al-Assad base in Iraq was the latest in a series of attacks on the base, which houses U.S. troops fighting the Islamic State group.
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