Hamas security official killed in Israeli drone strikes on Lebanon's Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp

Israeli drone strikes on a vehicle in Lebanon killed Hamas security official Samer al-Hajj late on Friday in the latest escalation by Israel, the Lebanese state news agency NNA reported.

Two strikes hit a jeep transporting al-Haj inside Lebanon's biggest refugee camp, Ain al-Hilwah, near the southern entrance of Sidon's vegetable market, NNA's correspondent said.

"Ambulances, civil defence units, and security forces immediately rushed to the scene," the report said.

The attack also killed his bodyguard, local media reports said. NNA said two civilians were also wounded in the attack.

A Palestinian source told the French language daily L'Orient-Le Jour that al-Haj was a security officer in the Palestinian refugee camp near Sidon, where he was killed.

Shortly after the assassination, dozens of Palestinians from the refugee camp came out to demonstrate and call for revenge, the daily said.

The attack comes amid heightened regional tension after Hezbollah threatened major retaliation for Israel's killing of a top military commander in Beirut last week. 

Earlier on Friday, an Israeli strike killed two Hezbollah fighters near the southern border.

Hezbollah in separate statements said two of its fighters were "martyred on the road to Jerusalem", the phrase it uses to refer to fighters killed by Israeli fire.

A source close to the Iran-backed group, requesting anonymity, said the pair were killed "in an Israeli strike in Naqura".

Elsewhere in south Lebanon, residents and local journalists circulated footage they said showed an Israeli drone flying over the village of Kunin, broadcasting a message in Arabic claiming that the cross-border violence "is thanks to Hezbollah and Hassan Nasrallah", the group's chief.

Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in cross-border clashes since October 2023.

Fears of all-out war have skyrocketed after an Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs last week killed Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr, just hours before the killing of Hamas's political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which was also blamed on Israel.