Israeli airstrikes around the Syrian city of Aleppo killed several people early on Monday, including an Iranian military adviser, the Syrian state media and Iranian news outlets reported.

Israel did not immediately acknowledge the strikes.

It was the first strike to kill an Iranian official since the April 1 attack on the Iranian Consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus that killed seven people, including two Iranian generals and a member of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group. The strike triggered a first-ever direct Iranian military assault on Israel, sparking fears of a regionwide war.

Syria's state-run SANA news agency gave no specific casualty toll for the strikes, which were around the southeastern edge of Aleppo and resulted in “a number of martyrs and some material losses.”

In Iran, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency, considered close to the Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, said Iranian military advisor Saeed Abyar died in the Israeli attack on Aleppo. It did not elaborate.

Iran has deployed military advisers in Syria since after the country's civil war erupted in March 2011 in support of Syria’s President Bashar Assad.

Israel rarely acknowledges strikes it carries out in Syria. Syria and Israel have been at war since Israel’s founding in 1948, and Israeli strikes have previously targeted Iranian positions and equipment there.

The developments come as Israel is fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip and also separately strikes targets in Lebanon while Hezbollah presses cross-border attacks into Israel.

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Israel hit targets deep inside southern Lebanon

Israeli drones hit areas deep inside Lebanon on Monday, killing one person and wounding another, in retaliation for launches by the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement from southern Lebanon into northern Israel.

Israeli drones targeted a car in the town of Kawthariyat al-Rez in Sidon district and a motorbike in al-Naqoura.

The state-run National News Agency (NNA) said one person was killed and another was injured in the Naqoura strike.

The Israeli army confirmed the strikes and said its warplanes struck the area of Tyre in southern Lebanon and "eliminated the terrorist Ali Hussein Sabra."

The army said Sabra was involved in efforts to equip and enhance Hezbollah’s Aerial Defence Unit, in reference to the drone launches by the movement.

It added that they also struck Hezbollah's infrastructure and several military compounds used by the Hezbollah aerial defence in the area of Qotrani in southern Lebanon.

A Lebanese security source described the situation in southern Lebanon Monday as "real war grounds."

Hezbollah in a statement said in support of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and "in response to the assassination carried out by the Israeli enemy this afternoon ... the Islamic Resistance [Hezbollah] launched an air attack with a squadron of assault drones on the new [Israeli] leadership headquarters" in northern Israel.

The pro-Iranian movement claimed direct hits.

Meanwhile, Israel's heavy shelling caused several fires in fields in the Western Bekaa region and southern Lebanon.

The escalation came as acting Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani arrived in Beirut and held talks with Lebanese officials.

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Lebanon's Hezbollah fires drone squadron at Israel as violence intensifies

Lebanon's Hezbollah said on Monday it had launched a squadron of drones towards the headquarters of the Israeli military's Galilee formation in an intensification of cross-border violence between the two adversaries.

While Hezbollah has previously launched drones at Israel during hostilities that began in October, it marked the first time the Iran-backed group had announced firing a squadron of them.

The hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel have rumbled on in parallel with the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, raising concern about the risk of a bigger conflict across the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Hezbollah also said it had launched dozens of Katyusha rockets towards Israeli targets in the occupied Golan Heights.

Air raid sirens sounded numerous times across northern Israel, sending residents running for shelter. The Israeli military said it had intercepted one drone from Lebanon carrying explosives, and at least two others fell in northern Israel.

Continuous rocket and drone launches since Sunday have set off massive wild fires in Israel's north.

The military also said it carried out strikes against Hezbollah compounds and one of its operatives.

Hezbollah said it had fired the explosive drone squadron in response to what it described as an assassination carried out by Israel in the Zrariyeh area some 25 km (15 miles) from the border, where security sources in Lebanon said a Hezbollah member was killed in an Israeli drone strike.

The group also said it had launched drones on Sunday towards Liman in northern Israel.

Also on Sunday, a drone launched by Hezbollah fell in the Israeli coastal city of Nahariya, causing a fire but no injuries, Israel's military and local media reported.

Lebanon's southern border has seen an uptick in hostilities in recent days, with both the Israeli military and Hezbollah striking locations outside the border strip where the exchanges of fire have been concentrated, and with increased intensity.

On Sunday, Israeli strikes killed two civilian men from the town of Houla, where they had stayed throughout the conflict to herd their cattle, security sources and townspeople told Reuters. They were buried on Monday in their hometown.

Israeli warplanes flew low over Beirut on Monday, according to residents.

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