Hezbollah commander among two killed in Israeli Tyre strike

Lebanese state media said an Israeli strike on a car in the country's south killed two people Tuesday, with a source close to Iran-backed Hezbollah saying a field commander was among the dead.

Israel and Hamas ally Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily fire following the Palestinian group's October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.

"The enemy drone strike that targeted a car on the Tyre-Al-Hosh main road martyred two people," the official National News Agency said, also reporting that ambulances had headed towards the site of the strike.

A source close to Hezbollah told AFP that a field commander had been killed in the strike, without identifying who.

The group said in a statement early Wednesday that one of its fighters, Hussein Makki, was "martyred on the road to Jerusalem", the phrase it uses to refer to members killed in Israeli fire.

According to several Lebanese news outlets, Makki was a Hezbollah field commander and was killed in an Israeli strike on a car in southern Lebanon on Tuesday night.

The Israeli army later confirmed it had launched the strike that killed Makki.

It described him as "a senior field commander" in Hezbollah responsible for planning and executing "numerous terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and territory".

"He previously served as the commander of Hezbollah's forces in the coastal region," the army added.

At least 413 people have been killed in Lebanon in seven months of cross-border violence, mostly militants but also including 79 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israel says 14 soldiers and 10 civilians have been killed on its side of the border.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides.