Hezbollah said at least two people were killed in the attack near its stronghold of Baalbek, about 100 kilometers from the border with Israel.
Lebanese security officials said Israel targeted eastern Lebanon for the first time since the Gaza war began last October.
At least two people were killed on Monday when Israeli military planes carried out three airstrikes on the outskirts of the village of Budai, near Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold in the Bekaa Valley, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the Israel-Lebanon border.
The attack targeted a convoy of trucks, and the Israeli military said it had struck “a Hezbollah terrorist target deep in Lebanon.”
The Israeli military confirmed the attack, saying its warplanes targeted locations used by Hezbollah for air defense systems, and said it was responsible for firing a “surface-to-air missile” that downed an Israeli drone in southern Lebanon early Monday. “in response,” he added, where most of the Israeli attacks had been carried out so far.
A Hezbollah official told Reuters about the Israeli attack. It crashed into a warehouse, killing two people. The warehouse is part of Hezbollah’s Sajjad project, which sells food to people within the base at cheaper prices than the market.
Videos posted by Lebanese media showed smoke billowing from near the Ardous plain in Buday, west of the city of Baalbek.
مشاهد إضافية للآثار الغارة الإسرائيلية على بعلبك pic.twitter.com/EdGUCrPxof
— bintjbeil.org (@bintjbeilnews) February 26, 2024
Two separate videos showed a destroyed area with a burnt out, overturned truck, a damaged SUV lying on the side of the road, and a large pile of rubble, believed to be a building.
The airstrike came hours after Hezbollah announced that its fighter jets shot down an Israeli drone over its base in the southern Lebanese province. Another missile fired by Hezbollah at a drone was intercepted by Israel and landed near a synagogue in a town near Nazareth in northern Israel. There were no injuries or damage.
The attack on Baalbek, deep in Lebanon, is the most significant since the Beirut attack in early January that killed Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri.
Since the war in Gaza began on October 7, Hezbollah and Israeli forces have engaged in near-daily firefights along the border, leaving at least 47 civilians dead.
The Iranian-backed Shiite group, which has close ties to Hamas, has said it will stop attacking Israel after a ceasefire is reached in the Gaza Strip. But Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Sunday that anyone who thinks the temporary ceasefire in Gaza also applies to the northern front is “wrong.”
After Hamas launched an unprecedented offensive into southern Israel on October 7, killing more than 1,100 people and capturing some 240, Israel killed nearly 30,000 Palestinians and Eighty percent of the district’s population of 2.3 million people were evacuated.
