Syria monitor says 2 dead in Israeli strike, Hezbollah source says member killed

A war monitor said an Israeli strike Tuesday in Syria killed two people, with a source close to Lebanon's Hezbollah saying a former bodyguard to the group's leader died in the raid.

Hezbollah since October has traded almost daily cross-border fire from Lebanon with the Israeli army in support of Palestinian ally Hamas, with Israel targeting operatives from the group in both Lebanon and neighbouring Syria.

"At least two people were killed and one was wounded in an Israeli drone strike on a Hezbollah car" near a Syrian army checkpoint close to the border with Lebanon, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A source close to the Iran-backed group, requesting anonymity, told AFP that a former bodyguard to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was killed in the strike, identifying him by the surname of Qarnabash.

Hezbollah in a statement announced the death of a fighter with the same surname.

The Shiite Muslim group later said it launched "dozens of Katyusha rockets" at a military base in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights "in response to the attack and assassination that the Israeli enemy carried out... on the Damascus-Beirut Road".

Also Tuesday, Hezbollah released a video showing aerial surveillance footage it said was taken over intelligence and military positions in the Golan Heights.

Israel seized the territory from Syria in 1967 and later annexed it in a move largely unrecognised by the international community.

- Hezbollah in Syria -
Since the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in the country, mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters, including from Lebanon's Hezbollah.

The strikes intensified after Palestinian militant group Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel sparked war in the Gaza Strip, before easing after an April 1 strike blamed on Israel hit the Iranian consular building in Damascus, sending regional tensions soaring.

Israeli strikes have killed at least 25 Hezbollah fighters in Syria since the Gaza war erupted, according to an AFP tally.

Last month, an Israeli strike targeted a convoy of tankers entering Lebanon from Syria, the Observatory had said, with Hezbollah announcing three dead and a source close to the group saying they were killed in east Lebanon's Hermel area.

Earlier Tuesday, the Syrian defence ministry said an Israeli strike caused damage but no casualties near the coastal city of Baniyas, with the Observatory saying Iranian military advisers were based in the area.

Israeli authorities rarely comment on individual strikes, but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.

Syria's war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions more since it erupted in 2011 after Damascus cracked down on anti-government protests.

Hezbollah also fights in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad's government.

Nasrallah is due to give a televised speech Wednesday at an event for a commander killed in an Israeli strike in Lebanon earlier this month.