BEIRUT (AFP) – An Israeli air strike on a south Lebanon border town killed a Hezbollah fighter, the group said yesteday, with state media reporting two of his relatives were also killed.
“Enemy warplanes raided, before midnight (2200 GMT), a house… in the centre of the town of Bint Jbeil,” around two kilometres (km) 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. Another family member was wounded, it added. Hezbollah later announced that Ali Bazzi was one of its fighters.
A relative told AFP that Ibrahim Bazzi was an Australian citizen who had flown in for a visit about a week ago.
Exchanges of fire have been largely confined to the border area, although Israel has conducted limited strikes deeper into Lebanese territory.
Since hostilities began, more than 150 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, most of them Hezbollah combatants but also more than a dozen civilians, three of them journalists, according to an AFP tally.
