Israel says hit Hezbollah 'arms depots' in Ghaziyeh after Tiberias drone blast

Violent Israeli airstrikes on Monday targeted the town of Ghaziyeh on Sidon's outskirts for the first time since the beginning of the Israel-Hezbollah border clashes.

Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said the strikes targeted "Hezbollah arms depots near Sidon in response to the explosion of a hostile aircraft whose debris was found near the Tiberias area (in northern Israel) this afternoon."

"We will continue to forcefully respond to Hezbollah's attacks," Adraee added.

The strikes targeted two separate locations in Ghaziyeh according to media reports and video footage.

NBN television meanwhile reported that the strikes hit a "cement factory" and an "oil factory."

While most the exchanges in recent months have been limited to areas near the frontier, Ghaziyeh is some 30 kilometers from the nearest Israeli frontier and less than five kilometers from the city of Sidon.

One of the strikes appeared to have targeted a hangar close to the main coastal highway.

The National News Agency had earlier in the afternoon reported an "enemy drone" at low altitude over the Sidon area.

Video circulating on social media showed large plumes of smoke arising from at least two strikes.

Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging near-daily fire across the border since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7.

The Israeli military last week said it killed a Hezbollah commander, his deputy and another fighter in a strike in the south Lebanon city of Nabatiyeh.

The strike on a residential building also killed seven civilians from the same family, while another strike elsewhere killed a woman, her child and stepchild.

On Friday, Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah vowed that Israel would pay "with blood" for civilians it killed in Lebanon in recent days, warning the group had missiles that could reach anywhere in Israel.

He warned that his Iran-backed movement has "precision-guided missiles that can reach... Eilat," on Israel's Red Sea coast, well beyond the northern towns it usually targets.

The latest uptick in violence has caused international alarm, with fears growing of another full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah like that of 2006.

Since October, cross-border exchanges have killed at least 269 people on the Lebanese side, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also including 40 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, 10 soldiers and six civilians have been killed, according to the Israeli army.