Beirut, Sep 8 (IANS): Three personnel of the Lebanese Civil Defense were killed and two others wounded in an Israeli drone strike on southern Lebanon, according to Lebanese military sources.

The sources, who spoke anonymously, told Xinhua news agency that an Israeli drone fired an air-to-ground missile at a group of Civil Defense personnel who were trying to extinguish a fire caused by a previous Israeli airstrike on Wadi Froun in the border area of southern Lebanon on Saturday.

The bodies of the victims, identified as Abbas Hammoud, Muhammad Hashem, and Qassem Bazzi, were transferred to a hospital in southern Lebanon, the sources said.

The sources also said that Israeli warplanes and drones carried out six raids on Saturday on four border towns and villages in southern Lebanon, and Israeli artillery shelled nine villages and towns in the eastern and central sectors with 35 shells, causing several fires and material damage.

Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border escalated on October 8, 2023, following a barrage of rockets launched by the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah toward Israel in support of Hamas' attack on Israel the day before. Israel then retaliated by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon.