Israeli strikes late on Tuesday targeted Lebanon's three northern border crossings with Syria for the first time, Lebanon's transport minister Ali Hamieh told Reuters
The strikes came moments after U.S. President Joe Biden announced that a ceasefire would come into effect at 4:00 a.m. local time (0200 GMT) on Wednesday to halt hostilities between Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and Israel.
Hamieh said it was not immediately clear whether the roads had been cut off as a result of the strikes. Israeli raids on Lebanon's eastern crossings in recent weeks had already sealed off those routes into Syria.
Syrian state TV reported the Israeli strike hit the Arida and Dabousieh border crossings with Lebanon.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment. It has previously stated that it targets what it says are Iran-linked sites in Syria as part of a broader campaign to curb the influence of Iran and its ally Hezbollah in the region.
Separately, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Tuesday that it struck an Iranian-aligned militia weapons storage facility in Syria in response to an Iranian-aligned attack against U.S. forces in the country on Monday.
In what has been an open secret for years, the Israeli military confirmed it has been operating against Hezbollah’s weapons smuggling unit in Syria to prevent Iranian arms from reaching the terror group in Lebanon.
A series of strikes during the ongoing war with the Iran-backed terror group have targeted Hezbollah’s Unit 4400, which is tasked with delivering weapons from Iran and its proxies to Lebanon.
According to the Israeli military, Unit 4400 was established in 2000 and built numerous “strategic routes” along the Syria-Lebanon border with Iranian support.