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Late on December 26, an Israeli air strike on southern Lebanon killed a fighter of Hezbollah along with a newly wed couple.
“Enemy warplanes raided, before midnight [local time], a house… in the center of the town of Bint Jbeil,” around two kilometers from the border, killing a man, his brother and his wife, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) said.
The NNA identified the dead as Ali Bazzi, his brother Ibrahim and his wife Shourouk Hammoud. Hezbollah later confirmed that Ali was one of its fighters.
“Ibrahim Bazzi had come to Lebanon a few days ago from Australia, where he has resided for years, to take his wife Shourouk with him and settle in Australia,” the NNA said, noting that another family member was wounded.
The border between Lebanon and Israel has seen escalating exchanges of fire, mainly between the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Hezbollah, since the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip began after the October 7 Hamas-led surprise attack.
Hezbollah carried out at least nine attacks against the IDF on December 26, targeting border positions and gatherings of troops. The group’s Military media released video of one of the attacks as well as another showing an attack from December 24.
The IDF acknowledged that nine IDF soldiers were wounded, one seriously, in an anti-tank guided missile attack by Hezbollah.
Separately, the IDF announced that a soldier seriously wounded in a Hezbollah rocket attack on northern Israel on December 22 had succumbed to his injuries.
So far, the skirmishes on the Lebanese-Israeli border have resulted in four civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of nine IDF soldiers. On the Lebanese side, more than 150 have been killed. The toll includes 120 Hezbollah members, ten of whom were killed in Syria, 16 Palestinian fighters, at least 19 civilians and three journalists.
