Beirut, Lebanon–Two Hizbollah fighters were killed in an Israeli drone strike on a residential building in south Lebanon on Thursday, a security source said, with the Iran-backed group later announcing retaliatory rocket fire.
Hizbollah and its arch-foe Israel have been exchanging near-daily fire across the border since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7.
An Israeli drone shot two guided missiles at the building in Kfar Rumman, near the southern city of Nabatiyeh, the security source said, declining to be identified as they were not authorised to brief the media.
Kfar Rumman lies around 12 kilometres (seven miles) from the Israeli border.
Hizbollah later confirmed that two of its fighters had been killed by Israeli fire.
It said it had fired “dozens of Katyusha rockets” at two Israeli barracks in response to the drone strike and other “attacks on villages and civilian homes”.
The Hamas ally claimed at least nine other attacks on Israeli troops and positions on Thursday.
The violence on Israel’s northern border has sparked fears of another full-blown war between Israel and Hizbollah like that of 2006.
Since October, at least 273 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, most of them Hizbollah fighters but also including 42 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, 10 soldiers and six civilians have been killed, according to the Israeli army.
Last week, Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed that Israel would pay “with blood”, after 10 civilians, including seven members of one family, were killed in Lebanon’s largest single-day death toll so far. Five Hizbollah fighters were also killed.
On Wednesday, an Israeli strike killed a woman and a girl, prompting retaliatory fire from Hizbollah.