Jerusalem–The Israeli army said Tuesday it hit about 4,500 Hizbollah targets in Lebanon and Syria over the past five months, killing 300 of the group’s fighters and wounding more than 750.
The targets were hit from the air and from the ground, the army said in a statement, and included “weapons storage facilities, military structures intended for Hizbollah’s offensive activity and operational command and control centres”.
Five senior commanders were among those killed, and dozens of “terrorist cells” that directed or fired anti-tank missiles and rockets at Israel were struck, the military said.
The strikes were in response to the Iran-backed Hizbollah’s “attacks against civilians and communities in northern Israel”, it said.
The statement came after a Lebanese security source said Israeli strikes on eastern Lebanon killed one person earlier on Tuesday, as cross-border fire escalated between Israel and Hizbollah.
Late on Tuesday the army said it struck two Hizbollah military infrastructure targets in Syria.
“The strike was conducted based on precise intelligence which incriminated the infrastructure,” the army said.
The army said “it will not allow for any attempted actions which could lead to the entrenchment of Hizbollah on the Syrian front”.
Since the day after the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October, Hamas ally Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged near-daily fire across Lebanon’s southern frontier, but several Israeli strikes have recently hit Hizbollah positions further north.
Since the start of the war, at least 319 people, mainly Hizbollah fighters but also at least 54 civilians, have been killed in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally.
At least 233 Hizbollah fighters have been killed by Israeli fire since hostilities began, mostly in Lebanon but also 16 in neighbouring Syria.
In Israel, 10 soldiers and seven civilians have been killed.
The cross-border fire has displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides.