Two Air Strikes Hit Lebanon’s Ghaziyeh, 60 km North of Israel Border, Witnesses Say

Black smoke and flames rise from a burning warehouse, attacked by Israeli strikes, at an industrial district, in the southern coastal town of Ghazieh, Lebanon, Monday, Feb. 19, 2024. (AP)
Black smoke and flames rise from a burning warehouse, attacked by Israeli strikes, at an industrial district, in the southern coastal town of Ghazieh, Lebanon, Monday, Feb. 19, 2024. (AP)
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Two Air Strikes Hit Lebanon’s Ghaziyeh, 60 km North of Israel Border, Witnesses Say

Black smoke and flames rise from a burning warehouse, attacked by Israeli strikes, at an industrial district, in the southern coastal town of Ghazieh, Lebanon, Monday, Feb. 19, 2024. (AP)
Black smoke and flames rise from a burning warehouse, attacked by Israeli strikes, at an industrial district, in the southern coastal town of Ghazieh, Lebanon, Monday, Feb. 19, 2024. (AP)

At least two air strikes hit near the town of Ghaziyeh on Lebanon's coast around 60 km (37 miles) north of the border with Israel on Monday, according to witnesses in the area.

The witnesses heard several loud booms and saw two thick black columns of smoke emanating from around the town.

Lebanon's state media said the strikes were Israeli and that one of them hit a car.

In response to a query from Reuters, the Israeli military said it was "checking".

Israel has been carrying out air strikes along the border area in south Lebanon against the armed group Hezbollah, which has fired rockets across the frontier. Israel has carried out strikes only rarely further north of the frontier zone.

More than 170 Hezbollah fighters and nearly three dozen civilians have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since Hezbollah launched rockets onto Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas, according to Hezbollah's announced figures and a Reuters count of civilian deaths.

Hamas fighters launched an attack on Israel on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage into the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli figures. Israel's air, land and sea bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 28,000 people since then, Palestinian health officials say.

Last week, two sets of Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon killed 10 civilians and several Hezbollah fighters, including a commander in the group's elite Radwan force.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said Israel would pay "in blood" for the killings of civilians.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Lebanon would "pay a heavy price" if diplomatic means failed to remove Hezbollah from the border zone.



Israel Says Apprehended Members of Iran-backed Cell in Syria

06 July 2025, Palestinian Territories, Tulkarm: An Israeli soldier enforces a ban as he attempts to enter the Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank. Photo: Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
06 July 2025, Palestinian Territories, Tulkarm: An Israeli soldier enforces a ban as he attempts to enter the Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank. Photo: Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
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Israel Says Apprehended Members of Iran-backed Cell in Syria

06 July 2025, Palestinian Territories, Tulkarm: An Israeli soldier enforces a ban as he attempts to enter the Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank. Photo: Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
06 July 2025, Palestinian Territories, Tulkarm: An Israeli soldier enforces a ban as he attempts to enter the Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank. Photo: Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

Israel's military said Monday it had apprehended members of an Iran-backed cell in southern Syria, the second such operation it has announced in the past week.

Since the December overthrow of Syria's longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes primarily on military sites and carried out cross-border ground raids.

In a statement, the military said troops "completed an overnight operation to apprehend a cell that was operated by the Iranian Quds Force in the Tel Kudna area of southern Syria."

"For the second time in the past week... troops completed a targeted overnight operation and apprehended several operatives who posed a threat in the area," the statement added.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Israeli forces raided early Monday a village in the Quneitra countryside of southern Syria and "carried out searches targeting several homes, which ended with the arrest of two brothers".

On Wednesday, Israel's military said its forces had apprehended members of an Iranian-backed "terrorist cell" in southern Syria and seized weapons.