BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said a woman was killed and 20 other people were wounded in Israeli strikes Friday in the country’s south, as Israel’s military said some raids targeted Hezbollah sites.
Israel has kept up regular strikes on Lebanon, particularly in the south, since a November 27 ceasefire meant to end over a year of hostilities, including two months of all-out war that left Hezbollah severely weakened.
“The Israel enemy strike on an apartment in Nabatiyeh led to a preliminary toll of one woman killed” and 13 other people wounded, the ministry said in an updated statement carried by the official National News Agency.
The NNA said an Israeli drone targeted the apartment.
The agency earlier reported “a wave of successive heavy strikes” in several other areas in the Nabatiyeh region that the health ministry said wounded seven people.
An Israeli army statement said fighter jets struck a site that Hezbollah used “to manage its fire and defence array in the area of the Beaufort Ridge”, near Nabatiyeh and the Israel border.
It said the site was “part of a significant underground project that was completely taken out of use” by the raids.
The military said it “identified rehabilitation attempts made by Hezbollah beforehand and struck terror infrastructure sites in the area”, calling the actions “a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon”.
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Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in a statement condemned the strikes and said Israel continued “to disregard regional and international resolutions and calls to stop the violence and escalation in the region”, urging “effective action from the international community”.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in a statement called the strikes “a blatant violation of national sovereignty and the cessation of hostilities arrangements” and a threat to stability.
Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani river, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the Israeli border, leaving the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the area.
Israel was required to fully withdraw its troops from the country but has kept them in five locations in south Lebanon that it deems strategic.
In a letter to the United Nations requesting a one-year renewal of the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon which expires in August, the foreign ministry demanded “Israel’s withdrawal from all Lebanese territory it occupies and a stop to its ongoing violations”.
On Thursday, Israeli strikes on south Lebanon killed two people, with the Israeli military saying it targeted Hezbollah operatives.
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