Metropolis Desk-
According to official media, at least two Israeli airstrikes occurred on Monday in southern Lebanon, close to the seaside city of Sidon.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, and Israel, its fiercest adversary, have been firing across the border almost every day.
The state-run National News Agency (NNA) said on Monday that “Israeli warplanes carried out… strikes on the town of Ghaziyeh,” adding that an ambulance had been dispatched to the scene and that a car had been targeted. No other information was provided.
“The Israeli army targeted Hezbollah warehouses near Sidon,” stated Israeli Army Spokesman Avichai Adraee. The enemy drone that exploded this afternoon, the wreckage of which was discovered close to the Tiberias area, prompted this bombing.
“We will continue to work forcefully in response to Hezbollah’s attacks,” Adraee continued.
“The army targeted Hezbollah infrastructure in the Ghaziyeh attack near Sidon,” Israeli Army Radio further revealed.
Hezbollah declined to take accountability for this incident.
At least two strikes were heard in Ghaziyeh, according to an AFP photographer, and the region was covered in billowing black smoke.
Drones were used in both of the raids, which focused on both sides of the Ghaziyeh highway that links Sidon to the south.
Reports state that the first raid targeted a warehouse that produced tires and generators, and the second raid targeted the area around a plant that produced tiles.
While the injured were being transported to Sidon hospitals, the explosions caused massive havoc at both locations as fires broke out.
Members of the Khalifa and Laila local families own the factories. “The offices and generators were hit by the raid and completely burned,” stated the tire factory owner. The proprietor attested to the fact that no firearms were kept at his factory.
“The two individuals are on the US sanctions list on charges of financing terrorism,” an Arab News source said.
Though most of the recent exchanges have been restricted to areas close to the border, Ghaziyeh is less than five kilometers from Sidon and about thirty kilometers (about twenty miles) from the closest Israeli border.
Social media users shared a video that appeared to show at least two strikes producing enormous plumes of smoke.
“Countries wishing to restore stability and calm to southern Lebanon should condemn the ongoing and prolonged Israeli attacks on Lebanon, the latest of which occurred today in the Israeli attack in the town of Ghaziyeh,” the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in an official statement.
“Put pressure on Israel to stop its provocative attempts to expand the circle of war, and to lure Lebanon into a war that it is striving to prevent due to its threat to the security and stability of Lebanon and the entire region, and will only result in calamities and devastation,” the ministry also urged the international community to do.
Last week, the Israeli military claimed to have killed a Hezbollah leader, his deputy, and an additional fighter during an operation in the city of Nabatiyeh in south Lebanon.
A security source claims that seven members of the same family were also slain in the hit on a residential building, and a lady, her child, and her stepchild were killed in another strike.
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, threatened Israel on Friday, saying the country would make up for the civilians it had killed in Lebanon in recent days “with blood,” threatening to use its missiles to target any location in Israel.
His militia, supported by Iran, possesses “precision-guided missiles that can reach… Eilat,” on the coast of the Red Sea in Israel, well beyond the towns in the north that it typically targets.
The recent surge in violence has alarmed people worldwide, raising the possibility of a full-scale conflict between Israel and Hezbollah similar to the one that broke out in 2006.
Based on an AFP calculation, cross-border confrontations have killed at least 269 people on the Lebanese side since October, mostly Hezbollah members but also 40 civilians.
The Israeli army stated in 2006 that there had been ten Israeli troops killed and six civilian casualties.
Source- AFP