BEIRUT

Lebanese group Hezbollah and the Amal Movement said Friday that five of their members were killed in Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon.

The Lebanese official news agency NNA reported that three Amal members were killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike on a house in the town of Al-Qantara in southern Lebanon.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah said its two more fighters were killed in clashes with the Israeli army in southern Lebanon, without providing further details.

A total of 202 Hezbollah fighters and 11 members of the Amal Movement have been killed since Oct. 8, 2023.

Israeli airstrikes targeted late Thursday houses in the towns of Naqoura, Jabal al-Lubnanah, Alma Al-Sha'ab, Tayr Harfa, and Yarin in northern Lebanon, the news agency said.

The army also shelled with artillery the outskirts of the town of Ayta ash Shab, it added.

Tensions have escalated on both sides of the Blue Line, against the backdrop of a destructive war waged by Israel on Gaza since Oct. 7, which has left 28,663 deaths and 68,395 injuries, most of them children and women, in addition to thousands missing under the rubble, according to Palestinian authorities.

For the first time since its establishment in 1948, Israel is being tried before the International Court of Justice, the highest judicial body in the United Nations, on charges of committing “genocide” against the Palestinians.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio