BEIRUT, Lebanon: Lebanon’s Iran-back Hezbollah group said it launched on Saturday explosive-laden drones at a north Israel army base following the killing of a Hamas commander in south Lebanon a day earlier.

Hezbollah fighters launched “squadrons of explosive-laden drones” at the Michve Alon base near the Galilee town of Safed “in response to the attack and assassination carried out by the Israeli enemy in the city of Sidon” on Friday, the group said in a statement.

Hezbollah’s media office said it was “the first time” the group had targeted that base.

On Friday, an Israeli strike on a vehicle in the south Lebanon city of Sidon killed a Hamas commander, the Palestinian militant group and the Israeli military said.