A medical officer was killed and seven other were wounded in a Hezbollah explosive drone attack in southern Lebanon on Monday, as the Iran-backed terror group kept up its relentless rocket and drone attacks, and the IDF pushed ahead with its renewed offensive.

The slain officer was named as Cpt. Dr. Ori Yosef Silvester, 30, the doctor for the Givati Brigade’s Shaked Battalion, from Tel Aviv.

The news came as US President Donald Trump announced that the two sides had agreed on a fresh truce in Lebanon, though it was not immediately confirmed by Israel.

During the attack, shortly after noon, two explosive-laden first-person view (FPV) drones launched by Hezbollah struck an armored vehicle in the town of Zawtar al-Sharqiyah, according to an IDF probe.

The explosion from the drones killed Silvester and wounded the seven other soldiers.

Two officers and a soldier were seriously wounded in the same attack, another soldier was moderately hurt, and two officers and a soldier were lightly injured.

Among those lightly hurt was the commander of the Shaked Battalion, a lieutenant colonel. The IDF said the battalion commander is due to return to command the unit in the coming days.

Silvester was the 14th IDF soldier to be killed in the fighting against Hezbollah since a US-imposed ceasefire ostensibly took effect in April. His death was also the second announced by the IDF in less than a day, after Staff Sgt. Adam Tzarfati was killed in a Hezbollah drone attack in southern Lebanon in the early hours of Monday.

Israel has struggled to fend off growing attacks on troops in southern Lebanon and northern Israel by Hezbollah’s FPV drones, which are largely impervious to jamming technology. The terror group has also fired rockets and other types of UAVs, hitting both military and civilian targets.

The remnants of the ceasefire have largely evaporated in recent days, and Hezbollah kept up its regular rocket and drone attacks on northern Israel and troops in........

© The Times of Israel