Hezbollah fighter, Jamaa Islamiya commander, killed in strikes in Tyre and Bekaa
Israeli drones targeted Thursday two cars in east and south Lebanon, killing a Jamaa Islamiya commander in the village of Ghazzeh in Bekaa.
The other drone strike targeted a car in Jbal el-Botm in the Tyre district, near Zebqine.
"A drone targeted at 6:30 this morning a Dodge pickup on the Ghazzeh road," the National News Agency said Thursday, adding that the strike killed Jamaa Islamiya commander, Mohammad Hamed Jbara from the Bekaa village of Qaroun.
Jamaa Islamiya and its armed wing the Fajr Forces in a statement said Jbara, a commander also known as Abu Mahmoud, was killed in a "treacherous Zionist raid" in the Bekaa.
Jamaa Islamiya, formed in the 1960s, has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks against Israel, including joint operations with Hamas in Lebanon.
The Fajr Forces, Jamaa Islamiya's armed wing, was established in 1982 to fight against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Hamas' armed wing also announced Jbara's death and said he was one of its commanders.
The Israeli military said the air force "eliminated" Jbara in a strike on the Bekaa, identifying him as "a Hamas operative in Lebanon".
He was "responsible for carrying out terror attacks and missile launches" against Israel, including attacks "coordinated" with Jamaa Islamiya, it said in a statement.
In June, an Israeli strike on a vehicle in east Lebanon killed a Jamaa Islamiya leader who Israel's military said supplied weapons to the group and to Hamas.
The cross-border violence since October has killed 512 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters -- nine of them from Jamaa Islamiya -- according to an AFP tally, but also including at least 104 civilians.
On the Israeli side, 17 soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed, according to authorities.
The exchanges of fire -- mostly between Hezbollah and Israeli forces -- have largely been restricted to the Lebanon-Israel border area, although Israel has repeatedly struck deeper inside Lebanese territory.
The violence has raised fears of all-out conflict between the two foes, who last went to war in the summer of 2006.
