At least 10 people were killed and 24 wounded in Israeli strikes in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley on Friday, Lebanon's Health Ministry reported.  

Israel's military said in a statement that it had hit Hezbollah command centers.

The strikes are among the deadliest reported in the region in recent weeks.

A senior Hezbollah official was among the dead, sources told Reuters news agency. Unnamed sources within the militant group later told news agencies that eight Hezbollah members were among those killed.

Hezbollah is an Iran-backed Shiite political party and militant group in Lebanon. It is designated as a terrorist organization by the US, Germany and several Sunni Arab countries, while the EU lists its armed wing as a terrorist group.

Hamas targeted in southern Lebanon

Separately, the Israeli military on Friday said it had also struck what it said was a Hamas command center from which militants operated in the ​Ain al-Hilweh area ⁠in southern Lebanon.

Ain al-Hilweh is a crowded Palestinian refugee camp.

Hamas ⁠condemned the Israeli strike on Ain al-Hilweh.

The militant, Islamist group acknowledged that two of its members had been killed in the strike.

However, it rejected Israel's claim of targeting a command center, slamming it as a "flimsy pretext."

The building targeted belonged to a joint security force tasked with maintaining security in the camp, Hamas said.

The Israeli military said it "is operating against the entrenchment" of the Palestinian militant group in Lebanon and will "continue to act decisively against Hamas terrorists wherever they operate."

Hamas is classified as a terror organization by the US, Germany and several other countries.

A fragile ceasefire

Almost immediately after the attack on Israel led by the Gaza-based militant group Hamas on October 7, 2023, Hezbollah began firing rockets from Lebanon into Israel in support of Hamas and Palestinians.

Israel responded with airstrikes and shelling.

The low-level conflict escalated into full-scale war in September 2024.

The US then brokered a ceasefire in November 2024, but it remains tenuous.

Israel has launched regular strikes on Lebanon despite the truce, saying it is targeting militants from Hezbollah and sometimes Hamas.

Lebanon's government last year committed to disarming Hezbollah.

The Lebanese army recently said it had completed the first phase of the plan, covering the area near the Israeli border.

But Israel has criticized the Lebanese army's progress as insufficient.

It has also accused Hezbollah of trying to rebuild and rearm.

Edited by: Kieran Burke