Lebanese media report two deaths in Israeli attacks on the south

“A hostile drone strike targeted a motorcycle in Naqura,” a coastal town near the Israeli border, Lebanon’s official news agency NNA reported, later reporting that “one person was killed and another injured.”

In another attack, “an enemy drone targeted a car” near the southern village of Zrariyeh, “killing one person,” according to the NNA, which also reported Israeli attacks in the east of the country.

It was not said whether the dead were civilians or fighters.

Hezbollah said it had fired a squadron of explosive-laden drones at northern Israeli army positions “in response to the attack carried out by the Israeli enemy this afternoon in the Zrariyeh area.”

Israel had previously attacked Hezbollah fighters as well as allied Palestinian and Lebanese militants in cars and on motorcycles.

The violence occurred during a visit by Iran’s acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri to Lebanon, where he was scheduled to meet with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Iran supports a number of armed groups in the region, including the Shiite movement Hezbollah and Palestinian groups such as Hamas.

Bagheri was on his first foreign trip in the position since top Iranian diplomat Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was killed in a helicopter crash last month along with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and other politicians.

Also on Monday, United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said she had spoken to Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib about the “urgency of the parties returning to a cessation of hostilities.”

On Sunday, Hezbollah said its fighters had bombed two army positions in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, following deadly attacks in southern Lebanon that left two shepherds dead, an official told AFP.

According to an AFP count, at least 453 people have died in the almost eight months of violence in Lebanon, most of them fighters, but also 88 civilians.

On the Israeli side, at least 14 soldiers and eleven civilians were killed, according to the army.

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