Hezbollah commander among 10 dead in Israeli strike on Nabatiyeh

A Hezbollah commander, two other fighters and seven civilians were killed in an Israeli strike in south Lebanon's Nabatiyeh, a security source said Thursday, raising the toll from a raid a day earlier.

The deaths brought to 10 the total number of civilians killed in Israeli strikes on Wednesday, the highest such toll since cross-border hostilities began in October, further raising fears of a broader conflict between Israel and militant group Hezbollah.

The Hezbollah commander, Ali al-Debs, had already been targeted and wounded in an Israeli drone strike in the southern Lebanon city of Nabatiyeh on February 8, the security source said, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Two other Hezbollah fighters who were on the ground floor with Debs and "seven civilians from the same family" on the building's first floor were also killed in Wednesday's strike on the building in the city, the source added.

Hezbollah announced Thursday that three of its fighters including Debs had been killed, without specifying where they had died. It had said two members were killed on Wednesday.

The Israeli army said Wednesday a soldier was killed in unclaimed rocket fire from Lebanon and that its jets carried out strikes on Lebanon.

The official National News Agency had previously identified five of the dead civilians in Nabatiyeh as Hussein Barjawi, his two daughters, his sister and his grandson. His wife and niece were also killed.

Emergency responders pulled a boy alive from the rubble, it added, while another relative and at least six other people were taken to hospital.

The agency said the Israeli strike was carried out by "a drone with a guided missile".

- Israel confirms killing -

The Israeli military on Thursday confirmed it had killed a Hezbollah commander, his deputy and another fighter in an air strike in Lebanese territory.

Ali al-Debs and the other two fighters were killed Wednesday night "in a precise air strike" carried out by an Israeli army aircraft on, the military said in a statement, describing the residential building in Nabatiyeh as "a Hezbollah military structure".

- Rising tolls -

An AFP photographer said the ground and first floors of the three-storey residential building were hit, with pieces of furniture strewn among the rubble.

Also Wednesday, the NNA said Israeli warplanes targeted a house in south Lebanon's Sawwaneh, killing three members of the same family -- a Syrian woman and her child, aged two, and stepchild, 13.

The Israeli military and Hezbollah have been trading near daily cross-border fire since the Israel-Hamas war began in October.

Fears have been growing of another full-blown conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which last went to war in 2006.

The Shiite Muslim group on Thursday claimed attacks on Israeli "spy equipment" and a barracks, while the Israeli military said fighter jets struck "dozens" of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is due to speak on Friday, his second such address this week.

The cross-border violence has killed at least 259 people on the Lebanese side, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also including 40 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, 10 soldiers and six civilians have been killed, according to the Israeli army.