اردو
  • 4 Israeli soldiers killed in Hezbollah's retaliation, an officer injured

    An anti-tank missile has struck an Israeli Defense Forces vehicle in the Har Dov area near the Lebanese border.

    Reports of casualties in the attack have emerged. Four soldiers are dead.Casualties have not been officially confirmed. The IDF only tweeted that several people were injured.

    A Spanish member of a UN peacekeeping force has been wounded by Israeli shelling on Lebanon. A UN spokesman later confirmed one of its peacekeepers was killed in southern Lebanon.

    Hezbollah has in a statement claimed responsibility for the attack on the Israeli military, which it said resulted in casualties among “enemy ranks.”

    The statement says the attack was carried out by a group calling itself the “heroic martyrs of Quneitra.” Quneitra is a district in the Golan Heights. The name of the group suggests the attack was in retaliation for the January 18 airstrike by Israel on the Golan Heights, which killed six Lebanese Hezbollah fighters along with a senior Iranian general.

    Residents in the area have been instructed to stay indoors.

    “All residents are asked to return to their homes and to close all doors and windows until further notice,”the IDF’s Home Front Command said in a text message, cited by the Times of Israel.

    Israel responded to the attack on the IDF vehicle by firing 25 artillery shells into Lebanon, according to Lebanese security officials cited by Naharnet.

    No soldiers were kidnapped in the Lebanon incident, IDF says.

    "The rumor of abduction has been ruled out," Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, who was commenting of a soldier having been kidnapped.

    Wednesday's attack took place near Mount Dov and Shebaa Farms, a disputed tract of land where the borders of Israel, Lebanon and Syria meet.

    Mortar bombs have hit an Israeli military position in the Golan Heights, the IDF said. No casualties have been reported in the attack.

    Airports in Chaifa and Rosh Pina have been closed, as well as roads along the borders with Lebanon and Syria. The IDF is holding an emergency meeting on the incident.

    Lebanese schools in the villages near the border with Israel are being evacuated.

    Several hours earlier, Israeli jets struck several targets in Syria in response to Hezbollah rocket fire into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.