Lebanon media says Israel struck Hezbollah eastern stronghold overnight

Lebanese state-run media reported Thursday an overnight Israeli air raid on eastern Lebanon, where Hezbollah holds sway, hours after the Iran-backed armed group launched an attack deep into Israeli territory.

Israel and Hamas ally Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily fire following the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, now in its eighth month.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency said that “the outskirts of the eastern Lebanon mountain range, at midnight (2100 GMT Wednesday), was subjected to five enemy raids.”

The strikes in the Baalbek area “slightly injured a citizen” and caused fires, the report added.

A source close to Hezbollah told AFP that one of the strikes “hit a Hezbollah military camp.”

An Israeli army spokesman told AFP: “I can confirm that an airstrike was indeed conducted deep in Lebanon against a terror target related to Hezbollah’s precision missile project.”

The area of Baalbek in the Bekaa valley is a Hezbollah bastion, bordering Syria.

Hezbollah launchrocket barrage at Israeli positions

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it launched on Thursday “more than 60” rockets at Israeli military positions in retaliation for overnight air strikes.

Hezbollah fighters “launched a missile attack with more than 60 Katyusha rockets” on several Israeli military positions including in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, the group said in a statement, adding it was “in response to the Israeli enemy’s attacks last night on the Bekaa region” in Lebanon’s east.

The cross-border fighting has killed at least 413 people in Lebanon, mostly militants but also including dozens of civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israel says 14 soldiers and 10 civilians have been killed on its side of the border.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in areas on both sides of the border.