Hezbollah retaliates to Bekaa and Masnaa strikes, Israel strikes Rihan

Hezbollah attacked Thursday a base in the occupied Golan Heights with an array of suicide drones in response to Wednesday's strikes on the Bekaa and al-Masnaa.

The Israeli army said that several drones have exploded in northern Golan, causing no casualties.

Israeli warplanes had struck Wednesday the Taoumat Niha heights near the town of Ain al-Tineh in the Western Bekaa and a car in Syria near the border with Lebanon, killing a Hezbollah member and three members of the allied Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.

Israeli warplanes raided Thursday the Rihan mountain in the Jezzine District deeper in the south while artillery shelled al-Khiam, Kfarkela, Borj al-Moulouk, Deir Mimas and Tayrharfa.

Also on Thursday, warplanes broke the sound barrier over Beirut and the South.

Hezbollah, for its part, targeted the Zar'it barracks, Kfar Yuval, Dovev and the al-Tayhat Hill in north Israel.

Israel and Hezbollah pulled back after an exchange of heavy fire across the U.N.-drawn boundary between Lebanon and Israel over the weekend. But their decades-old conflict is far from over and regional tensions linked to the war in Gaza are still high.

Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’ surprise attack into Israel on Oct. 7.

More than 500 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli strikes since Oct. 8, most of them fighters with Hezbollah and other armed groups but also more than 100 civilians. In northern Israel, 23 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides of the tense border.

Israel has vowed to bring quiet to the border to allow its citizens to return to their homes. It says it prefers to resolve the issue diplomatically through U.S. and other mediators but will use force if necessary. Hezbollah officials have said the group does not seek a wider war but is prepared for one.