An Israeli drone strike hit Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp on Friday, killing one person and wounding others, state media said, as the Israeli military claimed it targeted a Hamas command center in the Ain al-Helweh camp near the southern city of Sidon.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported the strike on a neighborhood inside the densely populated camp on Sidon’s outskirts. An AFP correspondent saw smoke rising from a building as ambulances rushed to the scene.
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In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said its forces “struck a Hamas command centre from which terrorists operated.” The military did not immediately provide casualty figures or further details about the target. Hamas did not issue an immediate comment specific to the strike in Ain al-Helweh.
Ain al-Helweh, a sprawling, crowded camp that has frequently witnessed factional violence, has been hit before. In November, an Israeli raid there killed 13 people, according to Lebanese officials. The UN rights office said 11 children were among the dead in that strike. Israel said it targeted a Hamas training compound at the time; Hamas denied it had military installations inside Palestinian camps in Lebanon.
The latest strike comes amid volatile cross-border tensions that have persisted since October 2023, when Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israel in support of Hamas at the outset of the Gaza war. Those exchanges stretched over months and culminated in two months of all-out war in Lebanon, further entangling Palestinian factions allied with Hezbollah.
On Sunday, a separate Israeli strike near Lebanon’s eastern border with Syria killed four people, Lebanese authorities said. Israel said it had targeted operatives from the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad. Details on the identities of those killed were not immediately available.
The frequency of Israeli strikes on Lebanese territory — including targets linked to Hamas and Islamic Jihad — has increased the risk of miscalculation, even as international mediators attempt to contain spillover from Gaza and stabilize the Lebanese-Israeli frontier.
In a parallel political development, Hamas said any talks over Gaza’s future must begin with a total halt to Israeli “aggression,” as a Washington-based body convened to discuss reconstruction plans. The group, referred to by organizers as Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, held its inaugural session in the U.S. capital, with several countries pledging funding and personnel for rebuilding, according to participants.
The board’s meeting, more than four months into a fragile Gaza ceasefire, yielded no timeline for Hamas to lay down its weapons or for the Israeli army to withdraw from the enclave. “Any political process or any arrangement under discussion concerning the Gaza Strip and the future of our Palestinian people must start with the total halt of aggression,” Hamas said in a statement. It added that any framework must include lifting the blockade and guaranteeing Palestinians’ rights, including freedom and self-determination.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted Hamas must disarm before reconstruction can begin. He did not attend the Washington meeting and was represented by Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.
The strike on Ain al-Helweh underscores how regional flashpoints remain interlinked: Israeli operations in Lebanon, escalating friction with Hezbollah, and unsettled questions about governance and rebuilding in Gaza. With civilian populations in camps and border towns repeatedly caught in the middle, humanitarian concerns continue to rise alongside fears of a broader conflagration.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
