The Israeli army said Thursday they killed another pro-Iranian Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, as fears grow that the clashes on the northern border of Israel could escalate, opening a new front in the conflict.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that "terrorist Fadel Ibrahim" was eliminated by an Israeli aircraft in a precise strike in the area of Deir Kifa in southern Lebanon.
The army said: "Ibrahim was the commander of Hezbollah operations in the Jouaiyya area, as part of his role, Ibrahim was responsible for planning and carrying out terror attacks against Israel and commanding Hezbollah ground forces in the area of Jouaiyya."
The Lebanese news agency NNA had previously reported that one person was killed in a drone strike.
Hezbollah confirmed the commander's death and said that in response to the attack in Deir Kifa, the Shiite militia fired dozens of rockets at targets in northern Israel.
There were also Israeli attacks on other places in southern Lebanon like Khiyam and Iqlim al-Tuffah region.
The Israeli military also said it had destroyed a rocket launcher on Lebanese soil.
Tensions between Lebanon and Israel have significantly escalated. There are increasing concerns that the daily cross-border clashes between the Israeli military and the Hezbollah militia is on the verge of expanding to a full-scale war.
Hezbollah has grown far stronger than during its last major war with Israel in 2006, analysts say, following years of fighting experience in the Syrian war.
Any longer war could lead to greater destruction on the home front and deeper inside Israel, Israeli retired brigadier general Shlomo Brom told the New York Times recently, saying Hezbollah could hit more or less any target in Israel, including civilian facilities, just as Israel could attack southern Beirut.
Last year, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said any war would knock Lebanon back to "the Stone Age."
Israel would be likely to win in the event of a war, was also the assessment of Riad Kahwaji, Director of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA). "No matter how much damage Hezbollah does in Israel, the Israelis will do 10 to 100 times as much," he says.
Hezbollah is not pushing for a war, but above all wants to deter Israel, he said, noting that so far, it has kept its attacks within limits.
Iran-backed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, warned Cyprus against cooperating with the Israeli military in a fiery speech on Wednesday, saying if the island make its airports and military bases available to the Israeli military, it would "become part of the war," Nasrallah said.
But the Cypriot government said Nasrallah's statements are divorced from the truth.
"The insinuations made by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah do not correspond to reality," Cyprus government spokesman Konstantinos Letybiotis said on Cypriot broadcaster RIK.
"Nasrallah's statements are unpleasant and we will take all steps at the diplomatic level."
In recent years, Israeli and Cypriot media had repeatedly reported that special units of the Israeli army had travelled to Cyprus to practice counter-terrorism tactics together with Cypriot units.
Nasrallah's threats belie the fact that Lebanon would struggle to wage war, lacking a president and fully functioning government and in a deep economic crisis.
Any war would cause further instability, said Kahwaji.
Meanwhile Israel is under growing pressure to allow the tens of thousands of displaced Israelis from close to the border to return to their homes.
Right-wing Israelis are even demanding that the Israeli security zone in southern Lebanon, evacuated in 2000, be re-established to protect them.