BEIRUT (Reuters) – An Israeli drone strike on a automotive crossing by means of a Syrian checkpoint close to the border with Lebanon on Wednesday killed three Palestinian fighters and one member of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, two safety sources instructed Reuters.
The automotive was not transporting weapons, the sources mentioned. There was no speedy remark from Hezbollah or from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad motion, to which one of many sources mentioned the three Palestinian fighters belonged.
Native Syrian official Abdo al-Taqi instructed a Syrian radio station {that a} automotive was focused on Wednesday morning on the highway between the Syrian capital Damascus and Lebanon’s capital Beirut, and 4 folks have been killed.
Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and different armed factions have launched rockets and drones at Israel from southern Lebanon. The teams have robust ties to Iran and to Syria’s authorities and have transported fighters and weapons by means of the porous Syrian-Lebanese border.
Israel has not commented on the incident. Whereas it takes accountability for strikes it carries out on Lebanon, it virtually by no means does the identical for strikes it’s accused of finishing up in Syria.
Israel has focused weapons shipments and different navy infrastructure in Syria for years and has stepped up its strikes there since October, when the Gaza conflict started.
Wednesday’s drone strike got here hours after an Israeli airstrike hit a pickup truck in northeast Lebanon close to the Syrian border. A safety supply instructed Reuters that the car was carrying navy tools, doubtless a broken rocket launcher on the way in which to be repaired.