Israeli strikes kill two militants in Lebanon

Israel confirmed it carried out the strikes.

Since Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel sparked war in Gaza, Israel has repeatedly targeted militants of Jamaa Islamiya, whose armed wing has launched attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon over the past nine months.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said Jamaa Islamiya commander Mohammed Hamed Jbara was killed when an "enemy drone" targeted his vehicle in the Bekaa Valley village of Ghazze.

In a statement, Jamaa Islamiya and its armed wing the Fajr Forces said Jbara, a commander also known as Abu Mahmud, was killed in an Israeli strike in the Bekaa.

Hamas's armed wing also announced Jbara's death and said he was one of its commanders.

The Israeli military said the air force "eliminated" Jbara in a strike on the Bekaa, identifying him as "a Hamas operative in Lebanon".

He was "responsible for carrying out terror attacks and missile launches" against Israel, including attacks "coordinated" with Jamaa Islamiya, it said in a statement.

Jamaa Islamiya, formed in the 1960s, has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks against Israel, including joint operations with Hamas in Lebanon.

The Fajr Forces, Jamaa Islamiya's armed wing, was established in 1982 to fight against that year's full-scale Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

The Israeli military also said its air force had killed Hassan Ali Mehanna, a Hezbollah militant in south Lebanon's Qana area.

"Mehanna was an operative in Hezbollah's engineering unit and was involved in numerous attacks against the State of Israel," it said.

Hezbollah confirmed Mehanna's death, saying he hailed from the southern town of Jibal al-Both. The NNA reported the targeting of a vehicle.

In June, an Israeli strike in eastern Lebanon killed a Jamaa Islamiya leader accused by Israel of supplying weapons to the group and to Hamas.

A Jamaa Islamiya official had previously told AFP that two members of the group were serving as bodyguards to Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri and were killed along with him in a January strike in Beirut's southern suburbs blamed on Israel.

The cross-border violence since October has killed 513 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally. Most of the dead have been fighters -- nine of them from Jamaa Islamiya -- but they have also included at least 104 civilians.

On the Israeli side, 18 soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed, according to authorities.

The exchanges of fire have largely been restricted to the Lebanon-Israel border area, although Israel has repeatedly struck deeper inside Lebanese territory.

The violence has raised fears of all-out conflict between the two foes, who last went to war in the summer of 2006.