Lebanon’s Iran-back Hezbollah group said it launched on Saturday explosive-laden drones at a north Israel army base following the killing of a Hamas commander in south Lebanon a day earlier.

Hezbollah terrorists launched “squadrons of explosive-laden drones” at the Michve Alon base near the Galilee town of Safed “in response to the attack and assassination carried out by the Israeli enemy in the city of Sidon” on Friday, the terrorist group said in a statement.

Samer al-Hajj
A woman carries a poster bearing a portrait of Samer al-Hajj, a commander of Hamas killed a day earlier in an Israeli strike on a vehicle in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, on Aug. 10, 2024.Photo by MAHMOUD ZAYYAT /AFP via Getty Images

Hezbollah’s media office said it was “the first time” the group had targeted that base.

On Friday, an Israeli strike on a vehicle in the south Lebanon city of Sidon killed a Hamas commander, the Israeli military said.

“Samer (Mahmoud al-Haj) operated as the military forces’ commander in the Ain al-Hilweh camp, located in the area of Sidon in Lebanon, and was responsible for the recruitment and training of terrorists to attack the State of Israel,” Israel Defense Forces said in a post on X on Aug. 9.

The Israeli military said that its aircraft struck the Sidon area and “eliminated” al-Haj.

It was the first strike of its kind in Sidon since Hamas launched its October 7 attack on Israel, triggering war in Gaza and prompting its Lebanese ally Hezbollah to begin trading near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army in a bid to tie down its troops.

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