At least 26 people were killed in an Israeli raid on the town of Nabi Chit in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley late Friday into early Saturday, according to the official news agency of the Lebanese government, the National News Agency (NNA).
The NNA reports that «an Israeli commando unit» arrived in Lebanon’s eastern mountains via four Apache helicopters and «infiltrated under the cover of darkness towards» a family cemetery in the eastern part of Nabi Chit.
«After being spotted by resistance fighters and local residents, clashes ensued with the commandos using light and medium weapons,» the agency said in a statement. «The confrontation resulted in 26 martyrs, including three Lebanese Army soldiers, one member of the General Security Directorate, 15 residents of Nabi Chit, nine residents of Khraibeh, one resident of Sar’in, and one resident of Ali al-Nahri. As usual, the enemy concealed its casualties.»
Earlier Saturday, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said the preliminary toll from an Israeli raid on Nabi Chit overnight was at least 16 citizens killed and 35 others wounded, according to NNA.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement later Saturday that its special forces had operated in Lebanon overnight in an attempt to locate the body of missing Israeli Air Force pilot Ron Arad, who disappeared during a mission over Lebanon in 1986. The IDF said no injuries on their side were reported and that no findings related to Arad were located at the search site, without specifying exactly where in Lebanon.
«The IDF will continue to operate relentlessly, day and night, out of a deep commitment to bringing all of Israel’s sons, the fallen and the missing, back home to the State of Israel,» the IDF added in its statement.
Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said in a statement Saturday that its fighters had detected four Israeli army helicopters coming from the direction of Syria that «proceeded to drop an infantry force» in Lebanon’s eastern mountain range. The Israeli ground troops advanced toward Nabi Chit’s eastern Al-Shukr neighborhood and clashed with Hezbollah fighters when they reached the cemetery, according to the group.
«The clash escalated after the enemy force was exposed, where the enemy resorted to launching intensive fire barrages involving about 40 raids, using warplanes and helicopters to secure the withdrawal of the force from the clash area,» Hezbollah said in the statement.
Video from the scene in Nabi Chit shows destroyed buildings and streets next to a giant crater in the ground.
The Israeli military routinely launches aerial attacks across southern Lebanon and has sent in ground troops, and in recent days has bombarded the Lebanese capital of Beirut as well as its southern suburbs; but it’s rare for them to carry out such operations further north or east. The last known such infiltration was in November 2024 when an Israeli naval commando unit captured a man whom they described as a «prominent Hezbollah element» in the northwestern Lebanese port city of Batroun.
-ABC News’ Nasser Atta, Ghazi Balkiz, Dorit Long and Morgan Winsor
