The Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement confirmed on Monday that two of its fighters were killed in an alleged Israeli military attack on the southern Lebanese town of Houla, near the Israeli border. The Islamist group identified the two men as Abbas Melhen and Mohammed Hassan, aged 34 and 19 respectively, who died “on the way to Jerusalem,” Hezbollah’s term for victims of clashes with Israel in early October, according to the group’s Al-Manar network. The Lebanese Health Ministry’s emergency operations center had previously reported that two people were killed in the town of Houla in an attack attributed to the Israeli military, but Israeli authorities have yet to comment. The Middle East war erupted after the Islamist Hamas movement launched an offensive against Israel in early October, killing nearly 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages. The Israeli military responded with a bloody military offensive in the Gaza Strip that killed more than 40,100 Palestinians. The Israeli offensive on the Palestinian enclave also drew a response from Hezbollah and other Islamist groups, which, with Iranian support, have launched attacks against Israel. In the case of the border with Lebanon, there are fears of a further escalation of the war with Hezbollah for weeks.
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