BEIRUT: According to sources in Lebanon, Israeli airplanes attacked Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley on Monday, shooting at least two Hezbollah members in the country’s deepest incursion into Lebanese territory since hostilities with the Iran-backed organization broke out in October of last year.
Hezbollah retaliated by firing 60 launches at an Israeli military base located on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, highlighting the potential for escalation, as the organization’s al-Manar television reported. Numerous rockets were fired from Lebanon towards the Golan Heights, according to an Israeli army spokesman.
Concerns about the possibility of additional escalation alongside regional spillover of the Gaza uprising were stoked by the attacks, which signaled an increase of the worst hostilities between Israel and the heavily armed Hezbollah since their war in 2006.
In reaction to the downing of an Israeli drone that Hezbollah claimed it was able to shoot down with an air-to-surface missile earlier on Monday, the Israeli army said that its fighter planes had attacked the group’s air defenses in the Bekaa Valley.
In response, Hezbollah launches sixty missiles into the Golan Heights headquarters of the Israeli army.
Hezbollah’s political base, the Bekaa Valley, is located close to the Syrian border and was targeted by the attacks. The intended region was about eighteen kilometers away from the well-known ancient ruin city of Baalbek.
According to the sources, Israel launched simultaneous strikes in the region. Two Hezbollah members have been slain, according to a person acquainted with the situation and a Lebanese security source.
Images of plumes of smoke billowing from the area were shown on the Lebanese television network Al-Jadeed.
A Hezbollah field commander was killed in a separate incident when an Israeli airstrike struck a car in the southern Lebanon town of Mjadel, according to three security sources in Lebanon.
The Israeli military released a video of the attack and identified Hassan Hossein Salami as the target. It claimed that Salami was in charge of several actions, including firing missiles at Israel.
Hassan Fadlallah, a politician for Hezbollah, claimed that Israel was expanding its strikes to include Baalbek and other locations in an effort to “make up” for downing its drone.
Speaking on television after the wake of a Hezbollah warrior who was slain recently, he declared, “Its aggressiveness on Baalbek or many other areas will not remain refrain from response.”
