JERUSALEM – Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant told his United States counterpart Lloyd Austin that Israel would deliver a strong response to Hezbollah after the Lebanese armed group struck an Israeli army base, killing four soldiers.

Gallant spoke to Austin overnight, and “highlighted the severity of the attack, and the forceful response that would be taken against Hezbollah”, the minister’s office said in a statement.

Hezbollah said its fighters were battling Israeli troops inside a Lebanese border village yesterday, and that they had launched a guided missile at an Israeli troop carrier in the same area.

Hezbollah fighters “are engaged in violent clashes with the Israeli enemy forces… in the village of Aita al-Shaab with… machine-guns, rockets and artillery shells,” the group said, later adding it targeted an “Israeli troop carrier with a guided missile” in the village.

Meanwhile, an Israeli strike hit an east Lebanon town as an aid convoy drove through it yesterday, wounding one of its drivers, a governor and the state news agency said. The governor of Baalbek, Bachir Khodr, on X reported “an Israeli strike very close to an aid convoy as it drove through the town of Ain” on its way to Ras Baalbek. He posted a picture from the back window of the car he was in, showing a huge column of smoke billowing up into the sky dozens of metres (yards) behind it.

“The driver of the truck driving directly behind us was injured,” he added.

Israeli strikes hit Ain during “the passage of a convoy consisting of three trucks” heading towards the town of Ras Baalbek, said the National News Agency (NNA).

“One of the aid trucks heading to Ras Baalbek was damaged as a result of the blowback of the strike in Ain, which led to the injury of the truck driver”.

Minister of Public Works and Transport Ali Hamieh told AFP that the convoy was carrying “humanitarian aid from the Lebanese government”.

It “was travelling to the area accompanied by the Lebanese Red Cross with agreement from the United Nations,” he said.

The convoy was made up of five trucks, and carried aid from several countries, including the United Arab Emirates and Turkey.

Two had previously unloaded goods in Baalbek, NNA said.

Almost a year of cross-border fire, Israel on 23 September 23 increased its strikes against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in south and east Lebanon, as well as the capital’s southern suburbs.

The escalation has killed more than 1 300 people, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

A planeload of aid including medical supplies from Qatar landed in Beirut yesterday, NNA said. 

– Nampa/AFP