A senior Hezbollah commander has been assassinated in a suspected Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon.

Video footage circulating online shows a huge cloud of smoke billowing following an explosion in the Lebanese coastal town of Jouya, located 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of the border with Israel.

Local media suggests five people were killed in the strike.

Three security sources told Reuters the commander oversees the central region of the southern border strip.

In a post on Telegram, the Lebanese armed group announced the death of one of its senior figures, Talib Sami Abdullah. It is unclear when or where he was killed.

Towns in the area have been repeatedly hit in the last eight months during exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah.

Hours earlier, Hezbollah said in a statement that its fighters bombed Kfar Blum and Gesher Haziv in northern Israel with dozens of rockets.

The group added that it bombed a group of Israeli soldiers at the Birkat Risha near Lebanon’s southern border.

Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging cross-border fire since last October, but violence has escalated in recent weeks with Israel’s military push on Gaza’s southern city of Rafah.