Two killed in overnight strike on Kfarkila

W460

Two Hezbollah members were killed Thursday in an overnight strike on the southern border town of Kfarkila, as tensions flared on the Lebanese-Israeli border.

Israeli warplanes and artillery also heavily bombed the town of al-Khiam, including with white phosphorus bombs, while a drone targeted a house in Markaba.

Hezbollah said it attacked Thursday an Israeli force and a group of soldiers in the Metula and the Malkia posts.

Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire since the Israel started its war on Gaza.

But Hezbollah strikes in the past few days have included a growing use of explosive drones and wounded people in Israel, which has struck increasingly deeper into Lebanon in recent weeks.

Hezbollah attacked on Wednesday an Israeli army base in Arab al-Aramshe, an Arab-majority village in northern Israel near the border, wounding 14 soldiers, including six seriously.

Hours after the strike, Israeli forces hit targets in eastern Lebanon. The strikes targeted a warehouse in Iaat, a residential area near Baalbek, and lightly wounded one man, a Hezbollah source told AFP.

The Israeli military said its "fighter jets struck significant Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure" used by the group's air defense in the Baalbek area.

The official National News Agency reported three drone strikes in the area, a Hezbollah stronghold far from the border with Israel.

An AFP photographer said the warehouse that was hit stored vegetables and agricultural produce.

On Tuesday, Israeli strikes in south Lebanon killed two local Hezbollah commanders and another operative.

On Monday, Hezbollah targeted Israeli troops with explosive devices, wounding four soldiers who crossed into Lebanese territory, the first such attack in six months of clashes.

The violence has killed at least 368 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also at least 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

In Israel, the military says 10 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed near the northern border since hostilities began.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled their homes on both sides of the border, with the violence fuelling fears of all-out conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, which last went to war in 2006.

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