An Israeli military vehicle was hit by an anti-tank missile fired from inside Lebanon on Tuesday amid rapidly mounting tensions on the country’s northern border with both Lebanon and Syria.
Four soldiers were reportedly wounded and the vehicle was set on fire in the incident, which took place at about 11.30am near Har Dov mountain, in an area where the Lebanese and Syrian borders meet Israel.
There have been a series of cross-border exchanges in the last 24 hours between Israeli forces and fighters in Syria and Lebanon including members of Hezbollah.
A military spokesman confirmed the incident to the Guardian but added that details remained unclear. Meanwhile a Lebanese security source – quoted by Reuters – said that Israel replied with artillery fire into southern Lebanon, with eight shells reportedly being fired.
The incident came only hours after Israeli jets hit several targets inside Syria on Tuesday night and in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The shells struck near Wazzani village.
Tensions have been mounting on Israel’s northern border for months but have escalated sharply in the last week and a half after an Israeli strike near the Syrian border town of Quneitra killed an Iranian general and a senior Hezbollah commander who were travelling in a convoy of several cars.
Both Hezbollah and Iran have threatened retaliation for that attack.
On Tuesday afternoon two missiles landed in the Israeli occupied area of the Golan Heights, which saw Israel return fire with artillery before the air strikes launched under the cover of darkness.
Following the strikes in Syria, Moshe Ya’alon, the Israeli defence minister, warned: “The IDF holds the Syrian government accountable for all attacks emanating from its land, and will operate by any means necessary to defend Israeli civilians. Such blatant breaches of Israeli sovereignty will not be tolerated.”
The latest cross-border exchanges – the most serious since the war in Syria begun – also took place as the Israeli military launched an operation to search for tunnels it believes Lebanese Hezbollah fighters may have dug, responding to concerns from residents of a small nearby village in northern Israel, a military source said.
“We are making checks on the ground following residents’ concerns. We have no intelligence indicating Hezbollah has dug a tunnel, but anything is possible,” the source said. “It is the first time we are conducting a search on this scale.”
Residents in the area, under fire from Hezbollah rockets during a month-long war in 2006, have at times reported underground noises and fear that militants are digging tunnels.
An Israeli air strike in Syria on 18 January killed several Hezbollah fighters, including a senior commander and an Iranian general, near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Israeli officials have said Hezbollah was too embroiled in the Syrian civil war, fighting alongside Syrian president Bashar al-Assad against rebels and jihadists trying to topple him, to launch a large-scale war against Israel in the near future.
But in preparation for possible future conflict with Israel, a senior intelligence officer told Reuters last month that Hezbollah was working to expand its tactics to include fighters launching raids on Israeli territory.
