This photo taken on May 8, 2024 shows smoke rising following an Israeli airstrike in a village in Khiam, Lebanon. Three members of The Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement, were killed, and three civilians were injured on Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike on a Lebanese southern village, Lebanese military sources told Xinhua. (Photo by Taher Abu Hamdan/Xinhua)
BEIRUT, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Three Hezbollah fighters and a civilian were killed on Thursday in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon's southern village of Bafliyeh in the district of Tyre, Lebanese military sources told Xinhua.
The sources, who spoke anonymously, said an Israeli drone fired two air-to-surface missiles toward a vehicle, burning it completely and killing three Hezbollah fighters inside of it and a civilian who happened to be in the area.
According to the sources, members of the Civil Defense and the Islamic Health Authority headed to the area, equipped with bulldozers, cranes, fire engines, and ambulances to put out the fire in the car, remove the rubble, and transport the bodies of the four victims to a hospital in the city of Tyre, southern Lebanon.
Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border escalated on Oct. 8, 2023, following a barrage of rockets launched by the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah toward Israel in solidarity with Hamas attack on Israel the day before. Israel then retaliated by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon.
The confrontations between Hezbollah and Israel have killed 457 people on the Lebanese side, including 288 Hezbollah members and 84 civilians, according to Lebanese security sources. ■
