BEIRUT (AP) – An Israeli drone struck a car near Lebanon’s southern port city of Sidon, killing at least two people and wounding two others, security officials said yesterday.
The drone strike near the coastal town of Jadra took place about 60 kilometres (km) from the Israeli border on Saturday, making it one of the farthest inside Lebanon since violence erupted along the Lebanon-Israel border on October 8.
An Israeli security official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the target of the strike in Sidon was Hamas official Basel Saleh, who was “injured to an unknown extent”.
Two Lebanese security officials said the strike damaged a car and killed two people, including one on a motorcycle. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. Lebanese troops cordoned off the area.
Drone strikes in Lebanon blamed on Israel have so far killed several officials from Hezbollah and Hamas. The previous farthest strike was the January 2 attack that killed top Hamas official Saleh Arouri in Beirut.
On Saturday night, Israeli forces shelled the southern Lebanese border village of Houla, killing one person and wounding nine as they left a mosque after prayers, state-run National News Agency reported.
The agency said that in addition to the artillery shelling, a drone fired a missile toward the mosque. Children were among the wounded, the agency said.
The attacks in Lebanon came as Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian met in Beirut with Lebanese leaders including the country’s caretaker prime minister, Parliament Speaker and the head of the militant Hezbollah group.
Amirabdollahian said that if the United States (US) wants to bring stability to the region again, it should work on forcing Israel to end its military operations in the Gaza Strip.
He told reporters after meeting his counterpart Abdallah Bouhabib that after four months of war, Israel and its backers had not achieved “anything tangible”.
In an apparent reference to attacks by Iran-backed fighters in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, Amirabdollahian said that “if American wants calm to prevail in the region, then the mechanism and the solution is to stop the genocide, crimes and the war against Gaza and the West Bank”.
He blasted Washington, saying the US is working on two tracks, one of which is sending weapons to Israel “and participating in the genocide in Gaza” and at the same time speaking about reaching a political solution to the war.
The US Central Command announced on Saturday that the US military conducted self-defence strikes against two mobile unmanned surface vessels, four anti-ship cruise missiles, and one mobile land attack cruise missile that were prepared to launch against ships in the Red Sea from Yemen.
The military said the missiles and an unmanned vessel in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen presented an imminent threat to US Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region.