Smoke rises from the disputed Shebaa Farms area, as seen from the southern Lebanese village of Marjayoun, July 27, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Karamallah Daher.

Hezbollah carried out an operation against the Israeli military on Monday near the Israel-Lebanon border, days after a member of the Iran-backed Shi’ite group was killed in an alleged Israeli air strike in Syria, Lebanese sources said.

One of the sources said Monday’s attack was in response to the strike, but there was no immediate statement from Hezbollah.

An Israeli military spokesman said Israeli troops had “thwarted an infiltration attempt by a Hezbollah terror squad” across the border, and that there were no Israeli casualties.

“Shortly after they crossed the Blue Line, we engaged,” the spokesman said.

He said the squad, numbering between three and five militants, had crossed back into Lebanon. Lebanese sources said there were no Hezbollah casualties.

One Lebanese source said Hezbollah had fired a guided missile at an Israeli tank. However, Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told reporters that he was unaware of any such incident.

The incident occurred in the Shebaa Farms area, which is controlled by Israel and claimed by Lebanon. The United Nations regards the territory as part of Syrian land captured by Israel in the 1967 Six‐Day War.

A Reuters witness in Lebanon counted dozens of Israeli shells hitting the area, landing near an Israeli military position. Fires burned and smoke rose from the area.

About an hour after initial Israeli reports of a security incident in the area, the military said it had lifted an order for Israelis living along the northern border to stay indoors.

“Lebanon and Hezbollah will bear the responsibility for any attack from Lebanese territory,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in broadcast remarks, shortly before the reports of the incident.

A Lebanese source familiar with Monday’s operation said Hezbollah’s attack was in retaliation for the death of a Hezbollah fighter killed in an apparent Israeli strike on the edge of Damascus last Monday.

Following the killing of two Hezbollah members in Damascus last August, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed to respond if Israel killed any more of its fighters in Syria, although the group’s deputy leader on Sunday said an all-out war with Israel was unlikely.

Hezbollah has deployed fighters in Syria as part of Iran-backed efforts to support President Bashar al-Assad in a conflict that spiraled out of protests against his rule in 2011.

Israel sees the presence of Hezbollah and its patron Iran in Syria as a strategic threat and has mounted hundreds of raids on Iran-linked targets there.