Israel strikes 30 locations in Lebanon despite ceasefire, NNA reports
Lebanese officials said the total number of people killed in Israeli strikes since 2 March has risen to 2,869. The toll includes dozens of deaths recorded after the truce took effect on 17 April.
As Israeli airstrikes hit more than 30 sites across Lebanon despite a ceasefire, the country’s top leaders pressed the US ambassador in Beirut to intervene and push Israel to stop the attacks.
Lebanese officials said the total number of people killed in Israeli strikes since 2 March has risen to 2,869. The toll includes dozens of deaths recorded after the truce took effect on 17 April.
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Israel’s military, meanwhile, said one of its soldiers was killed a day earlier in fighting near the Lebanese border, raising its losses since the start of the war to 18 troops and one civilian contractor.
President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam each held separate talks with US ambassador Michel Issa ahead of a third round of meetings between Lebanese and Israeli representatives scheduled for Thursday and Friday in Washington.
In recent days, Israel has stepped up its military campaign in Lebanon, with strikes over the weekend reaching to within about 20km of Beirut.
On Monday, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported Israeli airstrikes on more than 30 locations in the south and east of the country.
The agency said several areas were hit, including Zebdine in south Lebanon, where it reported that an Israeli drone targeted two people “while they were distributing bread” from a municipal vehicle to residents who had refused to leave the town.
Under the ceasefire terms published by Washington, Israel says it retains the right to act against “planned, imminent or ongoing attacks”.
Before launching strikes, the Israeli military issued evacuation warnings for seven towns in south Lebanon and two more in the eastern Bekaa region.
The NNA said the warnings triggered a “large wave of displacement” in West Bekaa, with hundreds of families fleeing the threatened communities.
Lebanese authorities say the war has forced more than one million people from their homes.
Hezbollah said it carried out at least 20 attacks on Israeli military targets in south Lebanon, including bulldozing equipment, describing the strikes as retaliation for ceasefire violations.
The Israeli army said two Hezbollah drones damaged “unmanned engineering vehicles” in south Lebanon and said its forces had “eliminated” a militant cell in the area.
Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the broader Middle East war on 2 March when it fired rockets at Israel, saying the attack was in revenge for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes.
Israel answered with airstrikes and a ground incursion. Its forces are now operating inside an Israeli-declared “yellow line” roughly 10km north of the border, where Lebanese residents have been told not to return.
In an interview broadcast yesterday on Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya channel, Mr Salam said Lebanon was “facing the occupation of 68 Lebanese villages as a result of this war that was imposed on us”.