A strike in Lebanon kills a Hezbollah fighter and a civilian, and it seems that Israel is moving toward targeted executions

Lebanese state media and health authorities claimed that an Israeli airstrike on Sunday struck two cars close to a Lebanese army checkpoint in south Lebanon, killing a Hezbollah member in one and injuring a lady in the other.

After more than three months of almost daily border skirmishes with Hezbollah terrorists against the background of the Gaza war, the attack seemed to be part of an Israeli strategic change toward targeted murders in Lebanon.

Hezbollah said that Fadel Shaar, one of its members, had perished in the attack on the Kafra town.

A few hours later, Samar al-Sayyed Mohammed, a civilian injured in the attack, was declared dead by the Lebanon’s National News Agency.

Hospital and local civil defense personnel said that many additional people were hurt.

A little vehicle that was stopped in the middle of the road close to a burning passenger car was captured on camera at the scene.

The Israeli military remained silent over the attack.

Hezbollah fighters and Israeli soldiers have been in close combat along the border almost every day since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict on October 7.

Previously, the fighting had mostly occurred in a small area just a few kilometers (miles) from the border. However, in recent weeks, Israel seems to have switched to a strategy of killing specific Hezbollah and allied figures, sometimes striking relatively far from the border, as was the case on Sunday.

Two persons in a vehicle, including a Hezbollah leader, and two civilians in a nearby orchard were murdered in another attack that occurred on Saturday close to the coastal city of Tyre in Lebanon. In south Lebanon on Sunday, the commander, Ali Hudruj, was laid to rest. Tech industry entrepreneur Mohammad Baqir Diab, the second car’s passenger, was recognized as a civilian and laid to rest in Beirut on Sunday.

Hezbollah fighters, a terrorist organization based in Lebanon
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Top Hamas leader Saleh Arouri was assassinated on January 2 in a Beirut suburb by what was presumably an Israeli airstrike. This was the first time such an attack has occurred in the capital of Lebanon since Israel and Hezbollah engaged in a bloody one-month war in 2006.

Hezbollah MP Hussein Jeshi claimed during Hudruj’s burial on Sunday that Israel had “resorted to the method of assassinating some members of the resistance” as payback for failing to defeat Hamas militarily after more than a hundred days of fighting in Gaza.

Later on Sunday, the terrorist group from Lebanon said in a statement that it had attacked the northern Israeli town of Avivim in reprisal for the Kafra strike as well as for previous “attacks that targeted Lebanese villages and civilians.”

Israel said on Sunday that it had hit Hezbollah targets in many areas of Lebanon, however it did not comment on the attack in detail. Later on, it said that no casualties were recorded when an anti-tank missile struck a home in Avivim.

In an effort to prevent the dispute from escalating into a full-fledged war on the Lebanese front, officials from the United States and Europe have been engaging in a frenzy of shuttle diplomacy between Israel and Lebanon in recent weeks, given the risks of a regional battle escalating on many fronts.

Hezbollah militants in Lebanon attack an Israeli facility in retaliation for fatalities in Lebanon.