Israel has 'surprising plans' for Lebanon, Netanyahu says

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel has "surprising plans" for Lebanon.

"We have eliminated hundreds of Hezbollah operatives, and the hand is still bent, even today," Netanyahu said Thursday.

"We have detailed, important, even surprising plans," he added, without elaborating.

An Israeli drone strike had killed Thursday a Hezbollah fighter in his car in Nabatiyeh.

The attack was the latest in months of violence that has upended lives on both sides of the Lebanon-Israel frontier as the Israel-Hamas war has raged in Gaza.

Lebanon's Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian militant group Hamas, has traded near daily cross-border fire with Israel since the October 7 attack on southern Israel.

In the more than seven months since then, at least 429 people have been killed in Lebanon, mostly militants but also including 82 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israel says 14 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed on its side of the border.

Despite the fatalities, both sides have so far calibrated the intensity and range of their strikes in efforts to avoid an all-out war between the two countries.