Hezbollah Claims Destruction of Three Israeli Battle Tanks Amid Ongoing Clashes

Hezbollah has claimed it destroyed three Israeli battle tanks, hours after Lebanese state media reported that Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed three people. The fighting took place a day after the United States and Iran signed an agreement to end the Middle East war on all fronts, including in Lebanon. Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon, said its fighters targeted “three Merkava tanks with guided missiles, causing the destruction and burning of the tanks”. The group told AFP news agency on Friday (19/6/2026) that this occurred after Israeli forces “consisting of an armoured platoon and an infantry platoon (attempted) to infiltrate the northern side of the Ali al-Taher hills” – a strategic location overlooking the key town of Nabatieh. “The battle is still ongoing,” Hezbollah said in a statement released on Friday (19/6). Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into the Middle East war last March, attacking Israel in retaliation for the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the start of the US-Israeli offensive. Israel subsequently retaliated with massive strikes across Lebanon and by launching a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, which borders Israel and has long been under Hezbollah’s influence. The conflict continues despite the US-Iran peace deal. Earlier, Hezbollah said on Thursday (18/6) that it was fighting “enemy Israeli army forces attempting to advance from the town of Arnoun towards the outskirts of Kfar Tibnit, near Nabatieh”. Lebanese state media, the National News Agency (NNA), reported on Thursday that “an enemy drone targeted a car” in the Kfar Tibnit area, killing two people. In the neighbouring village of Zebdine, another drone killed one more person, NNA reported. Meanwhile, the Israeli military announced the death of one of its soldiers the previous night in an incident in southern Lebanon, which also left seven others wounded.