The Israeli military said Wednesday a soldier was killed in rocket fire from Lebanon, while Lebanese official media said three civilians and a Hezbollah fighter were killed in a series of Israeli strikes.
While the rocket fire was not immediately claimed, the intense exchanges further raised fears of a broader conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, which have been trading near daily cross-border fire since Israel’s Gaza war began in October.
The Israeli army said in a statement Sergeant Omer Sarah Benjo, 20, was killed “as a result of a (rocket) launch carried out from Lebanese territory on a base in northern Israel”.
Fighter jets struck a series of “Hezbollah terror targets” in several areas of south Lebanon including Adshit and Sawwaneh, the military said.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said Israeli warplanes targeted a house in Sawwaneh with two strikes, “leading to its destruction” and the death of three members of the same family.
It identified the dead as a Syrian woman and two children, aged 13 and two.
The NNA also said an Israeli attack targeting south Lebanon’s Adshit killed one person, who Hezbollah announced was one of its fighters, and wounded 10 others, “completely destroying” a building and causing “great damage to commercial establishments, shops and homes” nearby.
A security source had earlier told AFP that a woman, her child and stepchild, were killed in Sawwaneh while another civilian had been killed in Adshit.