Hezbollah launches missiles and drones at northern Israel

At least 14 Israeli soldiers are wounded in an attack launched from Lebanon as regional tensions escalate.

The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for an attack on a military facility in northern Israel that wounded at least 14 soldiers, saying it was carried out in retaliation for Israeli strikes that killed Hezbollah members.

The Iran-aligned group said it launched “a combined attack with guided missiles and explosive drones on a new military reconnaissance command centre in Arab al-Aramshe,” an Arab-majority village of northern Israel near the Lebanese border.

The Israeli military said 14 of its soldiers were wounded in Wednesday’s attack and six were in serious condition. It added that it had “struck the sources of fire”.

Later, the Israeli military said its fighter jets had struck “terrorist infrastructure” of Hezbollah in eastern Lebanon.

The attack comes a day after Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed three people, including a Hezbollah field commander identified by the Israeli army as Ismail Yusaf Baz.

Israel said its strikes killed two local Hezbollah commanders and another operative while the group said three of its members were killed. Local Israeli authorities also said three people were wounded in a strike from Lebanon earlier on Tuesday.

On Monday, several Israeli soldiers who crossed into Lebanese territory were wounded when Hezbollah detonated explosive devices, the first such attack in six months of clashes.

In a statement, the Hamas ally said its fighters had planted the explosives in the Tel Ismail area in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire for more than six months in parallel with the Gaza war in the most serious hostilities since they fought a war in 2006.

The fighting has fuelled concern about the risk of further escalation, which has risen further since Iran carried out an attack on Israel with hundreds of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles at the weekend.

Israel has said it will respond even as several Western countries have urged it to avoid an escalation of conflict in the Middle East.

Iran’s attack followed an Israeli air strike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus on April 1, which killed seven members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including two generals.

United States President Joe Biden has told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Washington would not take part in any Israeli counteroffensive against Iran.