People and army soldiers check the wreckage of a car in which a leader from the Jamaa Islamiya group was killed by an Israeli strike in the village of Ghazze in the Bekaa region of eastern Lebanon on July 18, 2024. AFP
Since the war on Gaza eruptrd, Israel has repeatedly targeted the commanders and members of Jamaa Islamiya, whose armed wing in the past nine months has launched attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon.
Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) said that "Jamaa Islamiya commander Mohammed Hamed Jbara" was killed when an "enemy drone" targeted his vehicle in the village of Ghazze, in the Bekaa valley.
Jamaa Islamiya and its armed wing the Fajr Forces in a statement said Jbara, a commander also known as Abu Mahmud, was killed in a "treacherous Zionist raid" in the Bekaa.
In June, an Israeli strike on a vehicle in east Lebanon killed a Jamaa Islamiya leader who Israel's military claimed supplied weapons to the group and Hamas.
The cross-border violence since October has killed 512 people in Lebanon, among them -- nine of them from Jamaa Islamiya -- according to an AFP tally, but also including at least 104 civilians.
On the Israeli side, 17 soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed, according to authorities.
The exchanges of fire -- mostly between Hezbollah and Israeli forces -- have largely been restricted to the Lebanon-Israel border area, although Israel has repeatedly struck deeper inside Lebanese territory.
The violence has raised fears of all-out conflict between the two foes, who last went to war in the summer of 2006.
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