BEIRUT: Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has met with Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, the Lebanese movement said on Thursday.

In a statement, Hezbollah said Amir-Abdollahian and Nasrallah “reviewed the latest developments in Palestine, Lebanon and the region, and… the efforts made to end the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip”.

Amir-Abdollahian, who warned on Wednesday that the crisis could spiral out of control, left Beirut for Doha after their meeting, Iran’s Nour news agency reported.

Hezbollah said on Thursday morning that it fired 48 Katyusha rockets at a military base at Ein Zeitim, near the town of Safed in northern Israel, about 10 kilometres from the border.

It said it also carried out at least 10 other attacks on Israeli positions near the frontier, and claimed to have caused casualties.

Son of lawmaker among five dead in Israeli strike

The Israeli army shelled several locations in southern Lebanon in response, said Lebanon’s National News Agency.

In addition, Hezbollah said on Thursday that five of its fighters, including the son of a senior lawmaker, had been killed.

Abbas Raad, son of the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc Mohammed Raad, was “martyred on the road to Jerusalem”, the group said in a statement. It issued separate statements with the identities and photographs of four other fighters who were also killed.

A source close to the family, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media, said that Abbas Raad “was killed with a number of other Hezbollah members” in an Israeli strike on Wednesday on a house in south Lebanon’s Beit Yahun.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency said on Wednesday that “an air strike launched by the Israeli enemy… on a house in Beit Yahun killed four people”. It did not identify the victims.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2023