Israel said Friday that it had hit Hezbollah’s weapons smuggling crossings on the Lebanon-Syria border, with an unidentified number of people injured in the attack, according to a Syria war monitor.
The Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah uses crossing points along the Lebanon-Syria border, which the Israeli military claimed its air forces “struck in attempts to smuggle weapons into Lebanese territory.”
“The ceasefire agreements between Israel and Lebanon are being flagrantly violated by these actions,” the statement continued.
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A fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has been in place since November 27, after more than a year of hostilities including two months of all-out war. Both sides have accused the other of violating the deal.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the overnight strikes put an “illegal crossing” near Lebanon’s frontier town of Wadi Khaled, which borders Syria’s Homs province, “out of service” and wounded a number of people.
The raids came “after a convoy of smugglers’ vehicles was observed headed from Syria towards Lebanon”, added the Britain-based Observatory, which has a network of sources inside Syria.
Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman reported “heavy material damage to buildings and vehicles”.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported “enemy aircraft flying at low altitude over the city of Hermel” and villages in the Bekaa Valley in the country’s northeast near the Syrian border.
Under the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, Lebanon’s military was to deploy in south Lebanon alongside UN peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdrew over a 60-day period that was later extended to February 18.
Hezbollah was to pull back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Israel announced just before the latest deadline that it would temporarily keep troops in “five strategic points” near the border.
Earlier this month, the Israeli military said it carried out an air strike targeting a tunnel on the Syria-Lebanon border used by Hezbollah to smuggle weapons.
In January, Israel carried out air strikes in Lebanon targeting areas in the east and south according to Lebanese state media, with the Israeli military saying it hit Hezbollah targets including smuggling routes along the border with Syria.
Syria shares a 330-kilometre (205-mile) border with Lebanon, with no official demarcation.
Hezbollah lost a supply route when opposition groups in December ousted ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria, where Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes since war broke out in 2011.
Hezbollah holds sway in large parts of the Lebanese-Syrian border region, and had fought alongside Assad’s troops during the war.