Two killed in Hezbollah strike on Israeli-occupied Golan Heights

Strike followed killing of Hezbollah officials in Damascus

Vehicles leave an area engulfed by smoke from fires after rockets launched from southern Lebanon hit areas in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. AFP

Two people were killed in a Hezbollah strike on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday, which the militant group claimed as retaliation for the killing of Hezbollah militants in Damascus.

Israel's emergency services said two people were wounded following rocket sirens in the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967.

Initial reports suggested they had been “mortally wounded”.

Israeli media circulated images of a car in flames. It was not immediately clear if the casualties were soldiers or civilians.

It comes hours after several people were killed in a strike on a vehicle on the Damascus-Beirut motorway.

Local media reported one of the dead as a former bodyguard of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

The group said it hit the Nafah military base, home to the 210 Golani Brigade, with “dozens of rockets” on Tuesday evening, hitting a car in the area.

Multiple explosions were heard in the area, with Israeli media reporting at least three rounds of rocket sirens in the space of an hour.

Hezbollah said the attack was in support of the people of Gaza and in response to the “assassination” of Hezbollah members near Damascus. The group claimed to have launched at least 30 rockets at Israel in retaliation for the attack.

Fears of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah remain high.

Cross-border attacks on the Israel-Lebanon frontier began on October 8 and have since killed more than 300 Hezbollah militants and at least 90 civilians.

Iran, the main backer of Hezbollah, has warned Lebanon will be a “hell without return” in the case of an Israeli invasion.

Israel, meanwhile, has said fighting on the border will continue even in the case of a ceasefire in Gaza.

“My instructions to the forces in the north and the south are clear: even if we reach a settlement in the south, we will continue to fight in the north until we bring Hezbollah to a settlement and restore the residents with security,” Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said in a video on Sunday during a visit to the Mount Hermon area.

Israel also regularly strikes Syria, and bombed the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus in April.

While it rarely publicly acknowledges attacks on Damascus, it has vowed to target Iranian proxies in the region.