One Israeli soldier killed, several injured in Hezbollah Hurfeish strike
An israeli drone targeted Thursday a motorbike in the southern border town of Aitaroun, as Israel ramped up in past weeks its targeting of Hezbollah fighters and allied militants in cars and on motorbikes in south Lebanon.
The Israeli army had carried out airstrikes overnight on the southern towns of al-Odaisseh, the Tyre District town of Wadi Jilo, and the outskirts of Siddiqin and Adshit, while artillery shelled al-Abbasieh, al-Wazzani and the outskirts of Aita al-Shaab.
In response to the strike on Aitaroun, Hezbollah targeted the Biranit barracks in northern Israel and announced the death of one of its soldiers.
Earlier on Thursday, Hezbollah targeted an Israeli post in the occupied Kfarshouba Heights, a day after the group carried out 10 attacks on Israeli posts, including with suicide drones.
The Israeli military said Thursday that a soldier was killed in a Hezbollah drone attack on the town of Hurfeish in northern Israel.
The soldier "fell fighting in the north" on Wednesday, the military said in a statement, after two explosive drones were launched from Lebanon against the town of Hurfeish.
The Israeli army identified the soldier as Staff Sergeant Refael Kauders, aged 39.
In a briefing to reporters, military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said "Hezbollah... have for the last eight months been escalating almost every day their attacks against Israel" and "trying to penetrate Israel's defensive mechanisms".
"It had a devastating result, of course, of a soldier killed," Lerner said.
The military correspondent of the Times of Israel newspaper reported that the drone attack also left nine other troops wounded, one of them seriously.
Hezbollah also fired Wednesday a guided missile on an Iron Dome platform in the Ramot Naftali barracks.
As tensions escalated on the Lebanese-Israeli border, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel was "prepared for a very intense operation" along the border with Lebanon.
Wednesday's fatality takes the toll to at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians killed on the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, according to the military, since clashes with Hezbollah began after the war with Hamas broke out in Gaza on October 7.
In Lebanon, the violence has killed at least 455 people, mostly fighters but including 88 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Source: Naharnet
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