NGO reports two dead in Israeli strike on Hezbollah vehicle

Two people were killed in an Israeli strike targeting a Lebanese Hezbollah vehicle in Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) announced on Tuesday, July 9. “At least two people were killed and a third injured following an Israeli drone strike on a Hezbollah car in the Jdeidet Yabous area,” near the Lebanese border, the director of the OSDH, Rami Abdel Rahmane, told AFP.

The car was targeted near a Syrian army checkpoint, according to the NGO, based in the United Kingdom but which has a vast network of sources in the war-torn country. Hezbollah announced in a statement the death of a fighter with the same surname. An Israeli strike had already targeted the surroundings of the city of Banyas, on the Syrian coast, on the night of Monday to Tuesday, according to official media. On the Israeli side, at least 16 soldiers and 11 civilians were killed, according to the authorities.

Since the start of the civil war in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes targeting President Bashar al-Assad’s army and pro-Iranian groups that support him, such as Hezbollah, which is heavily deployed on both sides of the border. Israeli strikes have increased since the deadly attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, an ally of Hezbollah, on Israeli territory on October 7 and the Israeli response in the Gaza Strip. At least 24 Hezbollah members have been killed in Syria in Israeli strikes since October 8, according to an AFP tally.