- December 9, 2023
Israel-Hezbollah Strife Intensifies, IDF Kills 3 Pro-Hezbollah Fighters in Syria – News18
An Israeli soldier prepares a drone before he launches it into the sky, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, near Israel’s border with southern Gaza, in Israel. (Image: Reuters)
An Israeli drone strike killed three Hezbollah fighters and one Syrian in south Syria.
Three Hezbollah fighters and a Syrian were killed on Friday in an Israeli drone strike on their car in the south of Syria, a war monitor said.
“A Syrian and three Lebanese Hezbollah fighters from the surveillance and missile-launching unit were killed in the Israeli drone strike on their rented car” in Madinat al-Baath town in the province of Quneitra, close to the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
Later Friday Hezbollah said that three of its fighters had been killed, without giving any further details.
The previous day the Observatory, which has a network of sources in Syria, reported that Israel hit sites close to Damascus with eight missiles, as well as a “regime military post in the province of Quneitra”, without causing any casualties.
The strikes were a response to the bombardment of Israeli-annexed Golan, the monitor said.
On December 2, two Syrian Hezbollah fighters and two officers of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were killed in an Israeli air strike on Hezbollah sites close to Damascus, the monitor said.
The official news agency of the Revolutionary Guards, Sepah News, reported on the same day that two members of the guards had died on an “advisory mission” in its ally Syria, but did not specify where and when they were killed.
Israel has undertaken hundreds of air strikes in its neighbour Syria since the start of the country’s civil war in 2011, targeting the positions of the Syrian army and groups affiliated with Iran, such as Hezbollah.
Those missions have intensified since the start of Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7, which was triggered by the Islamist group’s unprecedented attack on Israeli soil.
On November 8, three Hezbollah fighters were killed in an Israeli strike against the militant group’s positions close to Damascus, according to the Observatory.
Israel rarely comments on its operations in Syria, but says it wants to prevent Iran, its sworn enemy, from establishing itself on Israel’s doorstep.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – AFP)
