Lebanon said an Israeli strike on Sunday near the Syrian border in the country's east killed four people, as Israel claimed it was targeting operatives from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group.
Lebanon's National News Agency reported an "Israeli emery raid on a car" killed four people near Masna on the Syrian border. The outlet said civil defence teams were able to extinguish the resultant fire inside the car and retrieve the bodies.
Four explosions had been heard in nearby towns. The Israeli army said it "struck Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists in the Majdal Anjar area in Lebanon".
Despite a truce struck in November 2024, Israel has carried out hundreds of attacks in Lebanon, usually claiming it is destroying Hezbollah infrastructure or eliminating members of the group. The strikes have killed around 400 people since the ceasefire came into effect, Lebanese security sources told Reuters.
PIJ fighters were among those killed in Lebanon during hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, which erupted in October 2023 after the outbreak of the Gaza war.
The PIJ and allied Palestinian militant group Hamas both claimed responsibility for some attacks and infiltration attempts in Lebanon during the hostilities.
In a separate statement, the Israeli army said it struck and eliminated a militant "who took part in attempts to re-establish Hezbollah terror infrastructure" in the Hanin area of southern Lebanon on Monday.
It said that over the past week, its troops had eliminated three militants who were attempting to re-establish Hezbollah infrastructure. The Israeli soldiers dismantled several structures and engineering vehicles that were used by the group to advance terrorist attacks in southern Lebanon, the statement added.
Lebanon has faced growing pressure from the US and Israel to disarm Hezbollah, and its leaders fear that Israel could dramatically escalate strikes across the battered country in a bid to press for Hezbollah's arsenal to be confiscated faster.
Hezbollah has fought numerous conflicts with Israel since it was founded by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in 1982. It kept its arms after the end of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, using them against Israeli troops who occupied the south until 2000.
