Israeli airstrikes hit northeast Lebanon killing two Hezbollah militants, security sources say

BEIRUT (Reuters) -Israeli war planes struck near two towns in northeast Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least two Hezbollah militants, security sources said, the furthest bombardment yet from the border where Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged fire.

Israel confirmed the strikes near Ras Baabelk and Hermel and said its aircraft targeted a number of military sites used by Hezbollah in response to a rocket attack on one of its bases near the Lebanese border.

Incoming rocket alerts sounded in northern Israel throughout Tuesday.

Hezbollah later said it had targeted an Israeli military barracks in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, immediately to the east of northern Israel, with 50 Katyusha rockets in response to Israel's strikes on the Bekaa Valley.

Hezbollah and the Israeli army have been trading fire since October in the worst cross-border violence since they fought a month-long war in 2006.

The shelling had mostly been limited to strips of land straddling either side of the disputed frontier but has expanded recently, with Israel striking in the eastern Bekaa Valley and even further north on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Beirut bureau; editing by Mark Heinrich and Angus MacSwan)