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Israel said it had hit “command centers” of the Lebanese
militant group Hezbollah in Bekaa Valley. There was no immediate
statement from Hezbollah.
Local television footage from the scene of one of the strikes in
the Bekaa showed the targeted site appeared to be an apartment
building, and emergency crews were fighting a fire and searching
in the rubble for survivors.
Earlier Friday, another Israeli strike had hit a Palestinian
refugee camp in the port city of Sidon, killing two people.
The Israeli military said it hit a “Hamas command center” in the
Ein el-Hilweh camp. Hamas acknowledged that two of its members
had been killed in the strike but called the claim that a
command center was struck a “flimsy pretext." It said the
targeted building belonged to a joint security force made up of
various Palestinian factions that is tasked with maintaining
security in the camp.
After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel triggered war
in Gaza, Hezbollah began firing rockets from Lebanon into Israel
in support of Hamas and the Palestinians.
Israel responded with airstrikes and shelling. The low-level
conflict escalated into full-scale war in September 2024, later
reined in but not fully stopped by a U.S.-brokered ceasefire two
months later.
Since then, Israel has accused Hezbollah of trying to rebuild
and has carried out near-daily strikes in Lebanon that it says
target Hezbollah militants and facilities. Hezbollah has claimed
one strike against Israel since the ceasefire.
The death toll from Friday’s strikes was unusually high and
comes at a moment of intensified tensions in the region as the
United States has threatened to strike Iran — a backer of both
Hezbollah and Hamas — if negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear
program fail to produce a deal.
During last year’s Israel-Iran war, Hezbollah remained on the
sidelines, but many in Lebanon fear that the country will be
pulled in should another war break out.
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