Hezbollah says targeted Israel base in retaliation for fighters' killing

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) - Lebanon's Hezbollah group said it attacked an Israeli army base on Wednesday, with Israeli medics reporting the strike wounded 14 people, including two seriously, in a northern village.

Israel and Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Hamas ally, have been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire since the Palestinian militant group attacked southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Wednesday that at least 33,899 people have been martyred in the territory during more than six months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.

The toll includes at least 56 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 76,664 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.

But Wednesday's incident marked the third day in a row that Hezbollah strikes wounded people in Israel, with regional tensions high after Iran launched a direct attack on Israel over the weekend in retaliation for a deadly strike on Tehran's Damascus consulate.

Hezbollah said it launched "a combined attack with guided missiles and explosive drones on a new military reconnaissance command centre in Arab al-Aramshe," an Arab-majority village of northern Israel near the Lebanese border.

The Galilee Medical Centre in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya said in a statement it had received "14 wounded people... including two who are seriously wounded".

Hezbollah said the attack came "in response to the enemy assassinating a number of resistance fighters in Ain Baal and Shehabiya" on Tuesday.

According to the Israeli army, "a number of launches from Lebanon were identified crossing into the area of Arab al-Aramshe," and Israeli forces struck the sources of the fire.

On Tuesday, Israel said its strikes in south Lebanon killed two local Hezbollah commanders and another operative, with the Iran-backed group saying three of its members were killed as it launched rockets in retaliation.

Local Israeli authorities said three people were wounded in a strike from Lebanon earlier that day. On Monday, Hezbollah targeted Israeli troops with explosive devices, wounding four soldiers who crossed into Lebanese territory, the first such attack in six months of clashes.

The violence has killed at least 368 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also at least 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally. In Israel, the military says 10 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed near the northern border since hostilities began.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled their homes on both sides of the border, with the violence fuelling fears of all-out conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, which last went to war in 2006.