This picture taken from a position in northern Israel shows an Israeli Air Force fighter jet flying over the border area with south Lebanon on March 10, 2024, amid increasing cross-border tensions between Lebanon's Hezbollah and Israel as fighting continues with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. (Credit: Jalaa Marey/AFP)
Israeli airstrikes near Lebanon's eastern city of Baalbeck killed one person on Monday, a security source said, in the second strike in the region since cross-border hostilities began after the Gaza war.
Since Oct. 8, the day after the war broke out in the Gaza Strip, Hamas ally Hezbollah and its arch-foe Israel have exchanged near-daily fire.
Strikes have largely remained confined to border regions, but several have hit Hezbollah positions further north in recent weeks, raising fears of a full-blown conflict.
"Israeli aircraft targeted a former Hezbollah building near Dar Al Amal Hospital," a security source told AFP, adding that Israel "conducted another strike on a warehouse west of Baalbeck."
The strikes killed one person and injured six others, he added.
The governor of the Baalbeck-Hermel region, Bashir Khodr, also said a man had been killed in the strikes near Baalbeck in a post on social media platform X.
Another security official confirmed the strikes, without mentioning casualties.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli air strikes on two locations, including the strike on the warehouse.
The NNA also reported Israeli raids "targeting a residential building in the town of Ansar ... south of Baalbeck".
"Fire and plumes of smoke could be seen rising from the targeted location," the NNA added.
The Israeli military later confirmed its jets had hit two sites belonging to "Hezbollah's aerial forces."
"The strikes were in retaliation to Hezbollah aircraft attacks launched towards the Golan Heights over recent days," it added.
The city of Baalbeck in the Bekaa Valley is a Hezbollah bastion, bordering Syria.
On Feb. 26, Israeli strikes targeted Baalbeck, some 100 kilometers from the border, killing two Hezbollah members in the deepest such strike into Lebanese territory since the hostilities began.
Hezbollah has repeatedly said that it will only stop its attacks on Israel with a cease-fire in Gaza.
But Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said recently that any truce in Gaza would not change Israel's goal of pushing Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon, by force or diplomacy.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October, at least 316 people, mainly Hezbollah fighters but also 53 civilians, have been killed in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally.
In Israel, at least 10 soldiers and seven civilians have been killed in the cross-border hostilities.
Israeli airstrikes near Lebanon's eastern city of Baalbeck killed one person on Monday, a security source said, in the second strike in the region since cross-border hostilities began after the Gaza war.
Since Oct. 8, the day after the war broke out in the Gaza Strip, Hamas ally Hezbollah and its arch-foe Israel have exchanged near-daily...