Lebanon says Israeli strikes kill 13 in the south

Israeli airstrikes hit southern Lebanon with deadly force, killing 13 people, the country’s health ministry said, including residents of a town where the Israeli military had ordered an evacuation despite a ceasefire still being in place.

According to the ministry, the heaviest toll came in Habboush, where eight people were killed, among them a child and two women, while 21 others were wounded – an increase from an earlier casualty count.

In Zrariyeh, four people were killed in separate strikes, including two women, and another four were injured, the ministry said.

The ministry also said an Israeli strike in Ain Baal, near the coastal city of Tyre, killed one person and wounded seven others.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said Israeli warplanes “launched a series of heavy strikes … less than an hour after” the evacuation warning was issued.

Israel said it was carrying out attacks across southern Lebanon, with the military stating that dozens of Hezbollah targets were struck.

In a statement, the Israeli military said it targeted Hezbollah positions, adding that “approximately 70 military structures and approximately 50 Hezbollah infrastructure sites were dismantled across several areas”.

Earlier, Israel’s military said it would respond “forcefully” to what it described as Hezbollah “violations of the ceasefire agreement” and instructed residents to move into open areas at least one kilometre away from Habboush.

The NNA also reported Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling in other parts of southern Lebanon, including Tyre.

Israeli forces in southern Lebanon near the frontier with Israel

Israel has continued to launch deadly attacks in Lebanon despite the 17 April ceasefire, which was intended to end more than six weeks of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Lebanese army chief Rodolphe Haykal held talks today with visiting US General Joseph Clearfield.

Clearfield heads a five-member committee tasked with overseeing a 2024 ceasefire intended to bring the most recent war between Israel and Hezbollah to an end.

The two men discussed “the security situation in Lebanon, regional developments, and ways to maximise the effectiveness of the (committee) and enhance its operations”, a Lebanese army statement said.

The ceasefire agreement gives Israel the right to act against “planned, imminent or ongoing attacks”.

Israeli troops are operating inside a “Yellow Line” stretching about 10km into Lebanese territory along the border, where they have been carrying out large-scale demolitions and controlled blasts.

The NNA said Israeli soldiers carried out detonations in the southern town of Shamaa and “demolished a monastery and a school” belonging to a religious order in Yaroun, after earlier destroying “homes, shops and roads” there.

Hezbollah said yesterday it had launched a series of attacks on Israeli troops and military positions in southern Lebanon, describing them as retaliation for Israeli ceasefire breaches.

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The group pulled Lebanon into the wider Middle East war in March when it fired rockets at Israel, saying it was avenging the US-Israeli killing of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Lebanon’s health ministry said yesterday that the number of people killed in Israeli strikes since 2 March had risen to more than 2,600, including 103 emergency workers and paramedics.

Xavier Castellanos, under-secretary general for national society development and coordination at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said Lebanese Red Cross volunteers head into missions fearing they may not come back.

Two Lebanese Red Cross paramedics are among those killed in Israeli strikes.

“That a person that is trying to save lives, is trying to alleviate human suffering, might be targeted, might be killed … this is something that I found absolutely unacceptable,” Mr Castellanos told reporters near Beirut.