Israeli strikes kill nine in south Lebanon, state news reports
- Among deadliest attacks since US-mediated peace framework
Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed at least nine people, including women and children, and injured eleven, marking some of the deadliest attacks since a recent US-mediated peace framework.
- The recent US-mediated peace framework and Hezbollah's rejection.
- Israel's justification for strikes and refusal to withdraw from Lebanon.
- Lebanese condemnation of civilian deaths, including women and children.
BEIRUT: At least nine people were killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Saturday, Lebanon’s state news agency said.
Seven people were killed when Israeli warplanes struck a house in the southern village of Ansar, while two others were killed in a strike on the village of Deir El Zahrani, the National News Agency said.
Eleven people were injured in the attacks.
The strikes are among the deadliest in the weeks since Lebanon agreed to a U.S.-mediated peace framework with Israel. The deal leaves Israeli troops inside occupied southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed and the Lebanese army takes control, terms the Iran-backed group has rejected as surrender.
“The framework agreement … is an Israeli order written in Israeli ink that the Lebanese authorities have signed onto,” Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said in a speech on Friday.
The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah infrastructure overnight in what it described as a security zone in south Lebanon in response to actions against its soldiers.
The seven killed in Ansar included three children and two women, state news said.
Lebanese officials condemned the attacks.
“The martyrs of the Israeli raid on the village of Ansar are not ‘military infrastructure’ and the women and children killed in it are not military targets,” Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said in a post on X.
Israel’s military seized a swath of southern Lebanon during its war with Hezbollah earlier this year, triggered after the group fired at Israel two days into the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Israel has said it will keep its forces there to protect northern Israel from further attacks.
During a visit to southern Lebanon on Thursday, defence minister Israel Katz said Israel would not withdraw from areas under its control until Hezbollah is disarmed. A U.S. State Department official said a permanent Israeli military presence there was not consistent with commitments set out in the deal with Lebanon’s government.
At least 4,300 people have been killed in Lebanon in the latest round of hostilities since March 2.
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