5 dead and 5 hurt in Israeli strikes on Hermel border town

Israeli strikes targeting a convoy of tankers in northeastern Lebanon late Monday killed three members of Hezbollah, an NGO and a military source told AFP.

Lebanon's Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces in the eight months since the Gaza war began, triggered by the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack.

"Three Hezbollah members were killed by nine Israeli missile strikes that targeted a convoy of tankers and a building" in a village in Hermel district on the border with Syria, the military source told AFP, adding that three people were also wounded.

Two others were also killed in the attack, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.

"Three Syrians working with Hezbollah and two Lebanese were killed in an Israeli strike targeting a convoy of tankers entering Lebanon on the border with Syria," the NGO's director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Five others had been wounded and two people were missing following the attack, he added.

Syrian anti-aircraft defense was activated to counter the attack, according to the war monitor.

The Israeli military said its "fighter jets struck a military complex of the Hezbollah 4400 unit, the logistical reinforcement unit of Hezbollah."

"The unit is used to smuggle weapons to and from Lebanon," it said in a statement, adding that it had hit two targets in the Baalbek region of eastern Lebanon.

Hezbollah fighters have long been deployed in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad's forces in his country's civil war.

A few hours before Monday's strikes, Hezbollah announced that it had shot down another Israeli Hermes drone over Lebanon, the fifth of this type since February.

Hezbollah, which has escalated its use of drones to attack Israeli military positions, claimed responsibility for several attacks on Monday, including one drone attack on military positions in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

Israel has also been stepping up its attacks on Hezbollah, particularly in the group's stronghold region Baalbek.

More than eight months of violence have left at least 462 people dead in Lebanon, including around 90 civilians and almost 300 Hezbollah fighters, according to an AFP count.