Iran’s foreign minister vowed after arriving in Beirut on Friday to keep supporting the militant Hezbollah group, saying Lebanon’s security affects that of Iran and the region.

Hossein Amirabdollahian was welcomed by representatives of Lebanon’s Hezbollah as well as the militant Palestinian group Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Iran, a main backer of the militant groups, has been calling on the U.S. to pressure Israel to stop its offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah began attacks along Lebanon’s border with Israel on Oct. 8 after 17 years of relative calm, a day after Hamas launched its attack on southern Israel that triggered the ongoing war. Hezbollah officials have said they will stop attacking Israeli military posts when Israel’s attack on Gaza ends.

“Hezbollah and the resistance in Lebanon have courageously and wisely carried out their deterring and effective role,” Amirabdollahian told reporters at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport.

He said Iran will continue “its strong support to the resistance in Lebanon, as we consider Lebanon’s security as the security of Iran and the region.”

Amirabdollahian is scheduled to meet Lebanese officials and hold talks with Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Shortly before he arrived in Beirut, Syrian state media reported that the country’s air defense units shot down two drones near Damascus, the capital. State TV quoted a military statement as saying the drones came from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The Syrian military statement gave no further details.

An opposition war monitor reported an airstrike hit an air base in Damascus’ western neighborhood of Mazzeh, without saying if there were casualties. It added that the strike occurred shortly after an Iranian cargo plane landed at the base.

Thousands of Iran-backed fighters are in Syria, where they have been fighting alongside Syrian government forces in the nearly 13-year civil war.

Israel rarely acknowledges its actions in Syria but has said it targets bases of Iran-allied militant groups. It has also targeted members of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Syria, including a high-ranking general in December.

Israel strike wounds Hezbollah official in Lebanon: security source

Smoke billows over the south Lebanon village of Kfarkila following an Israeli bombardment in the latest exchange of fire across the border.

An Israeli air strike on a car in south Lebanon seriously wounded a military official of Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah on Thursday, a Lebanese security source said.

The official was "seriously wounded and a companion was also injured" in the strike in the city of Nabatiyeh, some way from the border region that has seen almost daily exchanges of fire since the Israel-Hamas war broke out last October, the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported that the vehicle had caught fire after it was hit by missile fired by an Israeli drone as it entered Nabatiyeh at around 4:15 pm (1415 GMT).

The Lebanese army closed off the main road where the strike took place, an AFP photographer reported.

The Israeli military said it was "examining reports" of the strike, when asked by AFP for comment.

Earlier, Hezbollah said it had targeted a brigade headquarters in the Israeli border town of Kiryat Shmona in the latest exchanges between the two sides.

Since the day after Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, which sparked the Gaza war, Hezbollah has targeted Israeli army positions along on the border in support of the Palestinian Islamist movement.

Israel has repeatedly bombarded Lebanese border villages, killing 227 people, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also 27 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, 15 people have been killed in the northern border area including nine soldiers and six civilians, according to the Israeli army.

Hezbollah says launches rocket salvo at Israeli-occupied Golan

Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it fired dozens of rockets at an army position in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Friday, hours after launching a salvo at northern Israel.

Friday's attack came as Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian visited Beirut, and hours after Syria said it downed two drones near Damascus that it said entered its airspace from the Golan.

Hezbollah fighters targeted an Israeli army barracks "in the occupied Syrian Golan with dozens of Katyusha rockets", the group said in a statement.

It had already claimed a number of other attacks on Friday on Israeli targets including "spy equipment" and a tank.

Since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, the Lebanon-Israel border has seen near-daily exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.

The latest salvo came after Hezbollah said it fired dozens of Katyusha rockets at northern Israel late Thursday in reponse to an Israeli drone strike which seriously wounded a Hezbollah commander in the south Lebanon city of Nabatiyeh.

The Israeli military said that fighter jets struck a "military site" where Hezbollah fighters were operating in Maroun al-Ras and "military compounds" in two other south Lebanon towns.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported Israeli bombardment of multiple locations in the south.

After his arrival in Beirut on Friday, Amir-Abdollahian vowed that Iran would "continue to strongly support the resistance and Lebanon".

"We consider the security of Lebanon as the security of Iran and the region," he told a press conference.

The Iranian minister is to hold talks on Saturday with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati and other top officials.

Recent weeks have seen a flurry of diplomatic activity in the Lebanese capital, as Britain, France and Germany have all sent their foreign minister to appeal for a return to calm on the border.

Concerns have been growing that the Gaza conflict might trigger a full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah like that of 2006.

During four months of cross-border fire, at least 228 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also including 27 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, 15 people have been killed, six of them civilians, according to the Israeli army.

Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.