Hezbollah claimed responsibility earlier today for an attack against a military convoy in an Israeli-occupied border area following which Israel struck targets in southern Lebanon.
The army said an anti-tank missile hit a military vehicle in the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms area on the border with Lebanon and close to the ceasefire line with Syria.
An Israeli security source said four people were wounded in the area when their vehicle came under “very heavy fire at close range”.
Mortar shells also struck another military position on nearby Mount Hermon, the army said, without saying whether anyone was injured.
Hezbollah quickly claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it had “targeted an Israeli military convoy in the Shebaa Farms composed of several vehicles which was transporting several Zionist soldiers and officers.”
“There were several casualties in the enemy’s ranks,” Hezbollah said in a statement broadcast on the group’s Al-Manar television channel.
Shortly after the hit on the convoy, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the Jewish state would respond to any attack.
“The IDF (army) is ready to act with force on any front,” Netanyahu said.
Lebanese security sources told the international media that Israeli tanks began shelling areas of southeastern Lebanon shortly after the attack on the convoy.
There was no immediate information on casualties.
The Lebanese army is deployed in all five villages that were shelled, but it was not immediately clear whether Hezbollah had a presence there.
The fresh exchanges came after the Israeli air strike on the Syrian sector of the Golan Heights killed six Hezbollah fighters and an Iranian general on January 18.
The day before the raid, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened to retaliate against Israel for its repeated strikes on targets in Syria and boasted the movement was ‘stronger than ever’.
