An IDF soldier was severely wounded in a clash with a Hezbollah gunman in southern Lebanon on Thursday, and Israel responded by striking a number of the terror group’s targets, a week after Beirut and Jerusalem signed a new framework agreement aimed at ending the conflict.

And as tensions recede, more than half a million Lebanese residents have returned home to areas they evacuated amid escalated fighting earlier this year, according to a new report.

The IDF announced Friday morning that the reservist soldier was severely wounded in southern Lebanon’s Bint Jbeil on Thursday afternoon. He was taken to a hospital, and his family was notified, the Israel Defense Forces added.

According to an IDF probe of the incident, at around 6 p.m. during operations of the 679th “Yiftah” Armored Brigade in Bint Jbeil, troops encountered a Hezbollah gunman who opened fire on them, seriously injuring the soldier.

Immediately after, troops fired tank shells and struck the building from which the gunman had shot, and the Israeli Air Force struck other targets in the area.

IDF troops were continuing to scan the area for the gunman as of Friday morning.

The military said the Israeli Air Force struck some 10 additional Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon in response to the attack, along with “another violation” of the ceasefire, and separately hit a cell of operatives identified near Israel’s buffer zone.

The Hezbollah infrastructure sites in Bint Jbeil, Beit Yahoun, Kounine and Baraashit had been used by the........

© The Times of Israel