By Euan Ward and Hwaida Saad Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon |
Israeli airstrikes inside Lebanon on targets associated with the Hezbollah militia hit deeper than any in recent years on Monday, targeting an area close to the Syrian border.
The Israeli military said that its fighter jets had struck Hezbollah air defenses in the Bekaa Valley, about 60 miles from the Israeli border. It said that the strikes were in response to a surface-to-air missile attack that downed an Israeli drone over southern Lebanon. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for that attack.
At least two Hezbollah fighters were killed in the Israeli airstrikes and at least six other people were wounded, according to Bachir Khodor, mayor of the nearby city of Baalbek. Video from the scene provided by Mr. Khodor, which could not be independently verified, showed a building reduced to rubble and people on stretchers being loaded into an ambulance.
The Bekaa Valley, a fertile plain that runs along the Syrian border, has long been a stronghold for Hezbollah, the politically powerful Lebanese militia that has engaged in near-daily clashes with Israeli forces since the Hamas-led attacks in Israel on Oct. 7. The fighting has displaced more than 150,000 people on both sides of the Lebanese-Israeli border and left hundreds dead.
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