OCCUPIED AL-QUDS: Three gunmen who crossed into Israel from Lebanon and an Israeli man were killed in clashes and a strike along the frontier between the two countries on Sunday, the army and medics said.

Since the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip erupted on October 7, the Israel-Lebanon border has seen near-daily exchanges of fire between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israeli forces.

The Israeli military said troops patrolling a contested border area “identified a terrorist cell who crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory and fired at the forces” overnight.

Three gunmen who clashed with troops were shot dead, the army said, revising an earlier statement that said four had been killed.

The army said five soldiers were wounded in the firefight. Later on Sunday the Israeli military said warplanes struck Hezbollah positions following a missile strike on a house in the border community of Kfar Yuval that wounded multiple Israelis.

The Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency service said an Israeli man was pronounced dead after the missile strike in Kfar Yuval.

Paramedics also treated a 70-year-old woman in a serious condition, MDA said.

Hezbollah said it carried out several attacks on Sunday including in Kfar Yuval, where it claimed to target Israeli soldiers, adding there were “injuries and deaths”.

Tension spiked along the border after the killing earlier this month of Hamas’s deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri in a Beirut suburb in a strike widely attributed to Israel.

Violence on the border since October 7 has killed 190 people, including more than 140 Hezbollah fighters and over 20 civilians including three journalists, according to an AFP tally.

In Israel’s north, at least 14 people, including nine soldiers, have been killed, according to Israeli authorities. Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in 2006.