Israeli-Arab civilian killed by Hezbollah anti-tank missile attack at IDF post

An Israeli civilian was killed in a Hezbollah missile attack on an IDF convoy near Mount Dov, Israel Defense Forces announced on Friday morning.

The civilian was identified as Sharif Sawaed, a resident of the Arab village Ras al-Ain in the Galilee region. He is the 20th Israeli killed by Hezbollah since the terror group began its near-daily attacks against Israel in support of Hamas last October.

Sawaed was reportedly driving an engineering truck when Hezbollah attacked a convoy of Israeli vehicles with two anti-tank missiles shortly before midnight on Thursday, Army Radio reported.

The IDF has been engaged in construction work to bolster defenses on Mount Dov, an extremely mountainous area without a border fence.

After the missile ambush, the IDF responded by shelling the launch area with tanks and artillery, before striking targets in the village of Shuba, which faces Mount Dov on the Lebanese side of the border.

Israeli fighter jets later struck the “operational infrastructure of the Hezbollah terrorist organization in the Shuba area, alongside an attack on a military structure of the organization in the Ain a-Tina area in southern Lebanon,” the IDF said in a statement.

Hezbollah had carried out several attacks against Israel throughout Thursday, including three launches toward the area of Arab al-Aramsheh, and four additional launches into the area surrounding Mount Dov, the Israeli military said.

On Thursday, Israeli Air Force (IAF) jets also struck several other Hezbollah targets in the area of Alma al-Sha’ab and Shuba, while other IDF troops opened fire multiple times to remove imminent threats in southern Lebanon.

The deadly attack comes after several days of escalating tensions along Israel's northern border. Last week, a drone and anti-tank missile attack in Arab al-Aramsheh resulted in the death of one IDF soldier and injuries to 14 soldiers and four civilians.

This week, the Lebanese terror group stepped up its attacks as Israelis celebrated the first days of Passover on Tuesday and Wednesday, firing about 60 rockets and six drones, some of which infiltrated as far as the outskirts of Haifa before being intercepted over the Mediterranean Sea.

Israel responded by assassinating two senior Hezbollah officers before launching one of the broadest and most intense waves of airstrikes since the start of the conflict, striking approximately 40 targets in the area surrounding the town of Ayta al-Sha’ab within several minutes.