According to Lebanese state media, an Israeli strike in south Lebanon on Friday claimed the lives of a telecom technician performing maintenance as well as a first responder from a rescue group connected to a movement that Hezbollah supports.

Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas and backed by Iran in Lebanon, launched an attack on southern Israel on October 7 that sparked the Gaza War. Since then, Israel and the Palestinian group have engaged in almost daily cross-border gunfire.

As a consequence of Israel’s aggression on Tayr Harfa, two individuals were killed in Lebanon: a rescuer from the Risala Scout Association and a technician from Power Tec, which performs maintenance for MTC Touch, a private mobile service provider. This was reported by the National News Agency of Lebanon.

According to the NNA, workers from MTC Touch and the Ogero telecom provider were performing “maintenance on the transmission poles,” they had permission from UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.

The rescuer was killed when his team went to a location that had been under Israeli bombardment, according to the Risala Scout Association, which is connected to the Amal movement and runs rescue teams in south Lebanon.

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“One of the young men was martyred as a result of the swift second strike,” an association source told AFP.

A team that was performing maintenance in Tayr Haifa was affected by the strike, according to a source within MTC Touch.

The source, who asked to remain anonymous because they were not permitted to speak to the media, told AFP, “We lost communications with them because the station was hit.”

“There were paramedics there as well as members of our team and another company that performs maintenance work for us,” the source continued.

An AFP tally shows that in seven months of cross-border violence in Lebanon, at least 402 people have died, mostly civilians but also mostly militants.

Nine civilians and 14 soldiers are reportedly dead on Israel’s side of the border. This week, three soldiers lost their lives, one of them on Wednesday.

On both sides, tens of thousands of people have lost their homes.