BEIRUT: Lebanon said an Israeli attack on Friday wounded six people as Israel said it targeted a “Syrian terrorist” who planned anti-Israel attacks under Iranian instructions.

“The Israeli attack near the town of Hawsh Al-Sayyed Ali in the Hermel district led to six wounded, including five Syrian nationals, two of them women, and one Lebanese,” Lebanon’s health ministry said.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that “an enemy military drone targeted a car” in the town, located close to the Syrian border, an area largely been spared such attacks since an Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire was agreed in June.

Israel’s military said that it “struck a Syrian terrorist,” identified as Yusuf Ali Al-Hassoun, who it said “operated under the direction of the Iranian regime and advanced terrorist attacks targeting Israeli civilians and IDF (Israeli army) soldiers operating in southern Syria.”

It did not say whether the suspect was operating as part of a particular militant group.

Hassoun allegedly “planned and advanced attacks” against soldiers “that were thwarted, including the launching of explosive drones and rockets toward IDF soldiers in southern Syria.”

The Israeli military “will continue to operate to eliminate immediate threats on all fronts,” it said.

Since the December 2024 ouster of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria and sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone that had separated Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan since 1974.

It has also carried out repeated incursions deeper into Syrian territory, sometimes seizing residents, and has vowed to keep troops in a so-called “security zone” in southern Syria, where it seeks a broader demilitarised area.

On Monday, the Israeli military said it had killed an assailant at an army outpost in the area it occupies in southern Syria.

Syria’s former ruler Assad was an ally of Iran and Tehran-backed militant group Hezbollah, which drew Lebanon into the Middle East war this year by attacking Israel.