Hezbollah says destroyed Israeli tanks as Lebanon reports 3 killed

BEIRUT – Hezbollah said on June 19 its fighters destroyed three Israeli tanks and that clashes were ongoing, hours after Lebanese state media reported that Israeli strikes in the south killed three people.

The fighting came a day after the United States and Iran signed an agreement to end the Middle East war on all fronts, including in Lebanon.

Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group, said on June 19 that its fighters targeted “three Merkava tanks with guided missiles, which led to their destruction and setting them on fire”.

This was after Israeli forces “consisting of an armoured platoon and an infantry platoon (tried) to infiltrate towards the northern side of the Ali al-Taher hills” – a strategic site overlooking the key town of Nabatieh.

“The clashes are still ongoing,” Hezbollah said in the statement released in the early hours.

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war in March by attacking Israel to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader at the start of the US-Israeli campaign.

Israel retaliated with broad strikes across Lebanon and by launching a ground invasion in the south, which borders Israel and has long been under Hezbollah’s sway.

The hostilities have continued despite the US-Iran agreement.

Hezbollah said on June 18 it was fighting “a force of the Israeli enemy army that attempted to advance from the town of Arnoun towards the outskirts of Kfar Tibnit”, near Nabatieh.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported on June 18 that “an enemy drone targeted a car” in the Kfar Tibnit area, killing two people.

In the neighbouring village of Zebdine, another drone killed one more person, NNA said.

Israel’s military, meanwhile, announced the death of one of its soldiers the night before in an incident in south Lebanon that also left seven others wounded.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said that peacekeepers in Lebanon had also reported exchanges of fire on June 18.

“So far today, 143 trajectories of projectiles were observed. Of these, 119 were attributed to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), with the remainder to Hezbollah,” Dujarric said at a daily briefing.

“Yesterday, 364 projectile launches were observed, of which 330 were attributed to the IDF and 34 to Hezbollah.”

Hezbollah said on June 18 that its fighters had repelled a four-day Israeli offensive towards the Ali al-Taher hills – believed to hold important military infrastructure for the armed group – and Kfar Tibnit.

Hezbollah said it had attacked Israeli troops and tanks with drones, rockets and artillery, forcing them to retreat “under the cover of smoke screens and artillery fire during the night”.

Also on June 18, the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, Mohammad Raad, said that Israel’s war in Lebanon had “failed” to eliminate the group.

He also called on Lebanese authorities to “adopt a framework for indirect negotiations with the enemy” to stop the fighting.

He said the Israeli military must “fully comply with the cessation of hostilities on land, at sea and in the air, and prepare for and begin withdrawal within 60 days, without any need whatsoever for direct negotiations”.

The Israeli military, however, said on June 18 that it would continue to operate in southern Lebanon even after the United States and Iran signed their agreement.

The military also published a map of its so-called security zone – which runs some 10km inside Lebanese territory and includes the area where Hezbollah said it had confronted the Israeli offensive.

It said troops would remain there “to remove threats and strengthen the defence of Israel’s northern residents”.

In a later statement, an Israeli military official said the army would also “continue to remove threats to IDF soldiers and the civilians of the State of Israel that are identified beyond the security zone”. AFP