An Israeli strike near Aita al-Shaab in South Lebanon, on April 6, 2024. (Credit: Kawnat Haju/AFP)
BEIRUT — Overnight Saturday to Sunday was particularly eventful in Lebanon: two Israeli strikes targeted the Bekaa in the east of the country at around 1 a.m. and an earlier Israeli drone strike killed a woman in Yarin (Sour district) in the south, our correspondents in the Bekaa and the south reported.
In the Bekaa Valley, the first strike targeted the Anti-Lebanon mountain range and an area between Janta (Baalbeck district) and the Syrian border. The second targeted a warehouse in Sefri, near the city of Baalbeck. This locality had already been hit in March. A source from the Civil Defense, cited by AFP, did not report any casualties.
'Military complex'
The Israeli army said on Sunday morning that it had attacked "three terrorist infrastructures of the Hezbollah air defense unit" near Baalbeck. Its Arabic-speaking spokesman, Avichay Adraee, wrote on X that the night-time attack in the Bekaa "targeted a military complex and three infrastructures" of Hezbollah in response to a Hezbollah attack that shot down an Israeli drone on Saturday.
Hezbollah had announced at 8:50 p.m. that it had destroyed an "armed" Hermes 900 type drone, a reconnaissance device from the Israeli company Elbit Systems. The Israeli army acknowledged that a "surface-to-air missile had targeted an air force drone, which was in Lebanese airspace," causing the drone to "fall into Lebanese territory."
In southern Lebanon, a woman, Alia Abdel Karim, succumbed to her injuries on Saturday evening after being hit by a drone strike on Tuesday in Yarin, according to a medical source and the state-run National News Agency.
According to local sources quoted earlier this week by our correspondent in the region, the victim lived in Boustan, a neighboring locality of Yarin, where she had gone to pay her respects at her parents' grave before the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.
Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on Oct. 7, exchanges of fire have occurred daily between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, which claims to support the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in its war against Israel in Gaza. Hezbollah targets Israeli positions near the border. Israel retaliates with raids that increasingly target Lebanese territory and carries out targeted strikes against Hezbollah officials.
Last February, Israeli raids also hit targets in the Bekaa after Hamas announced it had shot down a similar Israeli drone. In a televised speech on Friday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah asserted that his movement had not yet used its "main" weapons in the battle and repeated that his party would cease its attacks when the war "stops in Gaza."
Reporting contributed by Sara Abdallah and Muntasser Abdallah
