A soldier was killed and two reservists were wounded in a Hezbollah explosive drone attack near the Lebanese border, the military announced Thursday, as fighting along the restive frontier continued to intensify.

Sgt. Rotem Yanai, a 20-year-old service conditions NCO in the Givati Brigade’s Rotem Battalion, was killed as she ran to a shelter during a twin drone attack in a military zone on the Israeli side of the border on Wednesday, the army said.

In Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces said it had begun striking Hezbollah infrastructure around the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, a day after issuing a sweeping evacuation warning indicating that it would extend operations to areas up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the border, with political and military leaders vowing to ramp up operations in Lebanon and expanding a ground campaign.

Yanai, a resident of Giv’at Ada in central Israel, was the 24th soldier to be killed since Hezbollah began attacking Israel on March 2 in support of Iran, after US-Israeli strikes on the Islamic Republic. A civilian contractor has also been killed in southern Lebanon.

A second explosive drone that also took part in the deadly attack Wednesday seriously wounded a reservist and left another reservist in moderate condition.

The drones had triggered sirens in the area as they were detected; however, they were not intercepted.

Israel has struggled to fend off growing attacks on troops in southern Lebanon and northern Israel by Hezbollah’s first-person view drones, which are largely impervious to jamming technology. The terror group has also fired rockets and other types of UAVs, hitting both military and civilian targets.

Another Hezbollah drone was........

© The Times of Israel