Hezbollah, Israel exchange strikes as Gaza truce talks stall

DUBAI – Lebanon’s Hezbollah launched an attack with a swarm of drones on military posts in the kibbutz of Amiad in northern Israel, the armed group said in a statement on Aug 21.

The Israeli kibbutz is located approximately 22km from the Lebanese border. Israel’s military said it could not confirm the attack.

Hezbollah said the attack was a further retaliation for an Israeli strike on the Lebanese Bekaa region on Aug 20.

The Israeli military said on Aug 21 it bombed Hezbollah weapons storage facilities in Bekaa, its latest strike on arms depots in a major stronghold of the powerful Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

The air attack came hours after Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said that “attacking munitions warehouses in Lebanon is preparation for anything that might happen”.

Hezbollah said it responded to the strike on Bekaa by firing Katyusha rockets at an Israeli military logistics site in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in hostilities for the past 10 months in parallel with the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The tit-for-tat strikes highlighted how months of diplomatic efforts have failed to ease hostilities along the Israel-Lebanon border.

They also came as the Biden administration has intensified its push for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in hopes of averting a broader Middle East war, although Israeli and Hamas officials have been cool to the latest US proposal.

While most of the exchanges of fire have played out along Lebanon’s volatile southern border with Israel, some Israeli strikes have occurred deeper into Lebanon, including the Bekaa Valley, which borders Syria.

Sources said the Aug 20 strike was at a residential area near the eastern city of Baalbek in Bekaa, an area populated mainly by Shi’ite Muslims from whom Hezbollah draws its support.

It left at least two people dead and 19 injured, according to security sources, but it was not immediately clear if those killed were civilians or fighters.

Another Israeli air strike on Aug 21, meanwhile, hit a car on the outskirts of the southern port city of Sidon, killing a member of the armed wing of the Palestinian faction Fatah.

It marked the first such reported attack on Fatah, the movement led by Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.

“The Israeli strike in Sidon killed (Fatah) group official Khalil Makdah,” said Mr Fathi Abu al-Aradat, a senior member of Fatah.

More than 600 people in Lebanon have been killed since Hezbollah-Israel clashes started in October, including more than 400 combatants and 132 civilians.

Targeting arms depots has picked up more recently.

On Aug 17, the Israeli military said it targeted a weapons depot used by Hezbollah militants in an air strike. Lebanon’s state news agency said at least 10 Syrian nationals, including two children, were killed in this incident. REUTERS, AFP