A commander with ties to the Palestinian faction Fatah was killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, just one of several Israeli attacks on Wednesday.
According to the Lebanese army, Khalil al-Makdah was killed in a drone strike in the port city of Sidon, 40 kilometers south of Beirut.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of Fatah, also reported that al-Makdah had been killed and praised him for his work in support of the Palestinian people, especially after the attacks in Gaza.
Mounir al-Makdah, a senior Fatah official in the Ain El-Hilweh camp in Sidon, said in an interview with Lebanese broadcaster Al-Mayadeen that his brother had served as a “brigadier general in the Fatah movement and worked in the military wing of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.”
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are a loose network with no clear hierarchy. Local groups often act on their own.
“Killings make us stronger and this testimony is a badge of honour and the resistance on the ground remains strong,” Mounir al-Makdah told the broadcaster.
Meanwhile, violence continued along the Lebanese-Israeli border after fresh Israeli airstrikes killed two people in southern Lebanon earlier on Wednesday, Lebanese security sources and the Health Ministry said, hours after another strike wounded at least 20 people.
Israeli strikes hit two areas early Wednesday morning, one in Beit Leif and another in al-Wazzani, killing one person in each location, the ministry said.
The Israeli military said it hit a car in Beit Leif, near the Israeli border. It said the target was a “Hezbollah terrorist.”
In response to the attack in Beit Leif, the pro-Iranian militia Hezbollah claimed to have sent a “suicide drone” into northern Israel.
The movement also claimed several attacks on Israeli targets, including one in the Golan Heights.
According to Israeli emergency services, a man was injured by shrapnel when a rocket hit his home in Katzrin in the Golan Heights.
Israeli media reported heavy damage in the city and near a military base attacked by Hezbollah in the Golan Heights.
An Israeli airstrike in eastern Lebanon has killed one person and wounded at least 20 others, including children, targeting Nabi Sheet, near the ancient city of Baalbeck in the country’s northeast, the Health Ministry said.
Hezbollah said the dead man was one of its members. Nabi Sheet is known as a stronghold of the movement.
Since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip, there have been daily military clashes between the Israeli army and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon and other groups in the border area between the countries. There have been deaths on both sides – most of them members of Hezbollah.
