Hezbollah retaliates to Borghlieh strikes as Israel raids it for 7th time

Hezbollah attacked Wednesday a command center in Kiryat Shmona and Israeli soldiers' posts in Metula, in response to Israeli strikes on south Lebanon.

The group said it attacked with suicide drones Israeli soldiers in Metula as Israeli warplanes raided the southern towns of Yaroun, Borghlieh and al-Khiam.

Hezbollah later attacked a barracks in Kiryat Shmona with dozens of rockets and artillery shells, in response to the strikes on Yaroun and al-Khiam.

Hezbollah said the attack on Metula was in response to four repetitive strikes on Borghlieh north of Tyre and announced the death of three of its members. The Israeli army meanwhile struck Borghlieh for the seventh time.

A drone also targeted a car in the southern border town of al-Wazzani. The driver survived, the National News Agency said, as he managed to get out of the car.

Also on Wednesday, Israeli soldiers fired machine guns at Kfarkila, and shelled the southern border village, and the nearby villages of Deir Mimas and al-Khiam. Israeli artillery also shelled the outskirts of Houla while drones struck Mays al-Jabal's town square.

The Israeli army said its warplanes had struck Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon overnight, while reporting a drone had infiltrated near the border town of Metula.

The Israeli military, which has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Hezbollah since October, said late Monday that "operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon were approved and validated".

It came after Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz threatened Hezbollah's destruction in a "total war".

The violence has killed at least 473 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including 92 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israeli authorities say at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed in the country's north.