The Syrian government and Lebanese tribes agreed to a prisoner exchange following clashes in a village near the Syrian-Lebanese border on Thursday, according to local reports.
Two members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) captured by Lebanese tribesmen during the fighting in the village of Hawik were released, Syrian state news agency SANA said, but tensions in the area remain high.
“The border security department managed to free two members kidnapped by a group of wanted people involved in smuggling weapons and contraband across the Syrian-Lebanese border,” SANA reported the Homs media office as saying.
In return, HTS agreed to release 16 women and children taken from a neighbouring village, Al-Mayadeen said.
The Hezbollah-linked news outlet said it had killed one HTS fighter and handed over the body under the agreement.
Syria’s HTS-led government had on Thursday announced the beginning of an “extensive campaign” in Hawik to crack down on smuggling, triggering an armed confrontation with local tribes.
Hawik, located near Al-Qusayr in Homs province, is a Lebanese village inside Syria inhabited by the Zaaiter and Jaafar tribes, and has been used by Hezbollah as a smuggling route between the two countries.
At least two Lebanese were killed in the clashes, which resulted in tribesmen capturing the HTS fighters and seizing military equipment.
One person was reportedly wounded when a shell struck the nearby town of Al-Qasr.
The Lebanese army has sent military reinforcements to the border to prevent militants entering its territory, according to Lebanon’s state news agency.
Since coming to power in December, Syria’s Islamist-led government has mounted a campaign to secure the border with Lebanon and crack down on smugglers linked to Hezbollah, with the area seeing frequent skirmishes between HTS fighters and Lebanese gunmen.
Some Lebanese soldiers were injured in clashes with Syrian fighters in January while Syrian authorities have imposed new entry restrictions on Lebanese citizens entering the country.
Israel strikes Lebanon
In the hours following the clashes, Israel conducted several airstrikes in Lebanon in violation of the ceasefire with Hezbollah, hitting what it claimed were weapons storage sites belonging to the Shia group.
Israeli warplanes “conducted a precise strike in Lebanese territory on two military sites that contained Hezbollah weapons”, the army wrote in a post on social media, claiming that Hezbollah had violated the ceasefire agreement.
On Friday, it bombed several sites in the south of the country, hitting the town of Al-Baysariya near Sidon and the border town of Kafr Kila, the Lebanese state news agency said.
Hezbollah and Israel agreed to a 60-day ceasefire in November during which Israel agreed to fully withdraw from Lebanese territory, handing control over the Lebanese army.
Israel refused to leave the country by the 26 January deadline, accusing the Lebanese government of failing to uphold the agreement by not moving troops into the south.
Lebanon then agreed with the US to extend the deadline until the middle of February.
