Syrian officer killed in alleged Israeli strike; Hezbollah explosive drone hits north
A Syrian military officer was killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike in southern Syria on Wednesday morning, the state-run SANA news agency reported.
Citing a military source, SANA said two Syrian military sites in Quneitra and Daraa were targeted by Israeli drones. The strikes also caused “material losses,” the report added.
There was no comment on the strike from the Israel Defense Forces, which has carried out hundreds of strikes inside Syria since the outbreak of that country’s civil war in 2011, mainly targeting attempts to transfer weapons to the Hezbollah terror group, an Iranian proxy, or to keep Iranian fighters themselves from gaining a foothold near Israel’s border.
Alleged Israeli strikes have ramped up since the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip began on October 7, when the Iran-backed Palestinian terror group launched a massive cross-border attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people.
Israel responded with a military offensive to destroy Hamas and free the 251 hostages that terrorists kidnapped from Israel during the October 7 onslaught and took as hostages to Gaza.
Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily fire with the Israeli army since the day after the Hamas attack. Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war against Hamas there.
On Wednesday morning, the IDF said an explosive-laden drone launched from Lebanon struck the Metula area in northern Israel, causing no injuries. The military said another suspected drone was shot down by air defenses over the northern town of Sde Eliezer.
Overnight, a drone strike was carried out against a Hezbollah weapons depot in southern Lebanon’s Yaroun, where the IDF said it identified a cell of operatives.
At the same time, another strike was carried out against infrastructure belonging to the terror group in Baraachit, the military added.
Hezbollah announces the deaths of three members following the strikes.
Meanwhile, Lebanese media outlets reported several Israeli airstrikes in the coastal town of Borgholiyeh, just north of Tyre.
Footage posted to social media showed the strikes. There was no immediate comment from the IDF.
The exchange of fire on Wednesday came after IDF generals approved battle plans for an offensive in Lebanon a night earlier.
Israel has warned it can no longer tolerate Hezbollah’s presence along its border, with tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from their homes in the north due to the rocket and drone attacks, and has warned that should a diplomatic solution not be reached it will turn to military action to push Hezbollah northward.
Earlier Tuesday, Hezbollah released footage from what it said was one of its reconnaissance drones flying over northern Israel, including the Haifa port. It was unclear when the roughly 10 minutes of footage released by Hezbollah were captured, and the IDF did not immediately comment on the video.
The IDF did say that it had targeted several Hezbollah operatives on Tuesday involved in launching drones at northern Israel.
The near-daily skirmishes on the border have resulted in 10 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 15 IDF soldiers and reservists.
Across the border, Hezbollah has named 346 members who have been killed by Israel, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 63 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have been killed.
Source » timesofisrael.com
