Hezbollah attacks Israel's Safad, Israeli troops on Lebanon border

Hezbollah said its fighters launched a drone attack on Friday targeting a military base in northern Israel, near the border, after claiming rocket fire at the same area.

Hezbollah fighters launched "an air attack with a swarm of explosives-laden drones" on the base located east of Safad, the group said in a statement, shortly after announcing it had fired "a salvo of rockets" at the town.

Israeli warplanes had launched strikes on Choueifat, Hadath, Haret Hreik, and Borj al-Barajneh in Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight.

- Hezbollah attacks Israeli troops on Lebanon border -

Hezbollah fighters hit Friday a force of Israeli soldiers, a military truck, and two tanks in the outskirts of the border village of Adaysseh. Fighters also struck a tank near the village of Marwahin and another in Houla.

The fighters hit a troop vehicle and "two Merkava tanks on the outskirts of Adaysseh with guided missiles", the group said, adding that the attacks caused casualties.

Fighters targeted 12 soldiers on the outskirts of Adaysseh "with a guided missile" and then attacked "a Hummer military vehicle" that came to their assistance.

Hezbollah operatives in the nearby village of Houla also hit an Israeli tank and fired "automatic weapons, artillery shells and rockets" at accompanying troops.

- Five Israel soldiers killed in south Lebanon -

The Israeli army said on Friday that five soldiers were killed and two others seriously wounded in fighting in southern Lebanon.

The soldiers "fell during combat in southern Lebanon" the previous day, the army said in a statement, bringing the total number of Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon to 32 since the start of the ground operation on September 30.

- 2 killed in Israel's Majd Al-Krum -

Two people died after being wounded by shrapnel from a rocket barrage launched from Lebanon into northern Israel on Friday, the hospital and the army said.

"A 22-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman were pronounced dead after they were brought in critical condition", the hospital's spokesman said in a statement, with the army earlier saying that "approximately 30 projectiles" from Lebanon had been intercepted near the Arab town of Majd al-Krum in the Galilee region.

Seven others were also wounded in the rocket barrage on Majd Al-Krum.

- 3 children among 12 killed in Israeli strikes on east Lebanon -

Three children were among 12 people killed in Israeli strikes on Thursday on two villages in the country's east, one month into the Israel-Hezbollah war.

"The Israeli enemy strike on Al-Khodr in the Baalbek-Hermel region killed seven people including three children," the ministry said, adding that another Israeli attack in the same area "killed five people".

- 163 rescuers, health workers killed in year of Israeli strikes -

Caretaker Health Minister Firas Abiad said Friday that Israel has carried out attacks on 55 hospitals — 36 of which were directly hit — leaving 12 people dead and 60 wounded.

Abiad told reporters that eight hospitals have been closed while seven are still partially functioning.

He said that paramedic groups have been targeted in different areas, killing 151 people and wounding 272. Of the paramedics killed, eight remain in their ambulances in south Lebanon with Israel’s military preventing anyone from reaching them, he said.

"Attacks against the medical and paramedic sectors in Lebanon are direct and intentional aggressions," Abiad said, adding that Israel’s military claims to have intelligence information on what is happening in Lebanon, thus cannot say that these attacks happened by mistake.

"This is a war crime," Abiad said.

- Israeli strike closes Lebanon-Syria crossing -

An Israeli airstrike in northeast Lebanon has closed another border crossing with neighboring Syria, Lebanon’s state news agency said Friday.

The airstrike on the outskirts of the village of Qaa brings the number of border crossings between the two countries that have been struck by Israel’s military to three. That leaves three functioning border crossings.

An Israeli airstrike on Oct. 5 blocked a highway and left a giant crater near the Lebanese side of the crossing, known as Masnaa, about 50 kilometers from Beirut. Masnaa is the busiest border crossing between the two countries.

In late September, an Israeli airstrike struck the border crossing of Matraba in Lebanon’s northeast, forcing it to close.