First responders search for survivors at the site of an overnight Israeli airstrike that targeted a house in the southern Lebanese village of Zibdine, on April 2, 2026 .AFP
In separate statements, the Iran-backed group claimed rocket fire targeting Israeli troops in border areas and a drone attack targeting a village.
Sirens were activated in those areas, according to the Israeli Home Front Command, with no reports of any casualties or damage.
Hezbollah early Wednesday claimed cross-border attacks against Israel and said its fighters were engaged in "fierce clashes" with soldiers in the Lebanese town of Shamaa, around five kilometres (three miles) from the border. It also said it was behind rocket fire targeting a group of Israeli soldiers in another area.
Israel claimed on Wednesday it killed a top Hezbollah commander, two sources told AFP, in a Beirut strike that Lebanon's health ministry said killed seven people.
A Lebanese security source and a Hezbollah source told AFP that the commander, Youssef Hashem, had been responsible for the group's military affairs in Iraq and was in a meeting inside a tent when Israel struck.
Israel's military said Hashem was Hezbollah's commander for its south Lebanon front.
A source close to Hezbollah said Hashem is "the highest-ranking official to be targeted since the start of the war".
Another Hezbollah member, Mohammad Baqir al-Nabulsi, was also killed in the strike on the Beirut area of Jnah, the group said.
In the south near the border, Israel has said it intends to reoccupy a swathe of Lebanon to create what officials have called a buffer zone to push back Hezbollah. Israel already occupied southern Lebanon for around two decades until 2000.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said Tuesday that "all the houses in the villages adjacent to the border in Lebanon will be demolished".
Katz's Lebanese counterpart Michel Menassa decried those plans, while Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney denounced what he called an "illegal invasion".
The Lebanese army announced Wednesday "a repositioning and redeployment operation" in the south "as a result of the escalation of the Israeli aggression".
A Lebanese military source told AFP that the army had withdrawn from some southern towns but remained in others.
In its latest toll, the Lebanon's health ministry said that Israeli attacks have killed 1,318 people in the country since war erupted on March 2, raising a previous toll of 1,268 a day earlier.
The ministry statement said the toll included 91 women, 125 children and 53 health workers, with 3,935 other people wounded.
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