Lebanon reports 11 dead in strikes that Israel says targeted Hezbollah

ANSAR, (Lebanon): Lebanon said Israeli strikes on the south killed 11 people including three children on Saturday, the deadliest raids since deals in June eased hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israel’s military said the strikes in the early morning were in retaliation for an attack by the Iran-backed militant group on its troops in south Lebanon.

They came as Israel and Lebanon were set to hold an eighth round of US-sponsored direct negotiations early next month in Rome.

The sides agreed a framework deal at talks in Washington in June, but Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Saturday’s “violations are a clear message on the negotiations process and American efforts aiming to implement this agreement”.

Hezbollah said the Israeli attacks “will be met with an appropriate response”, urging Lebanese authorities to abandon “the humiliating path of direct negotiations”. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said that Israel “escalated its attacks on the south” early Saturday, reporting an airstrike on a home in the village of Ansar and a “series of airstrikes targeting the Ali al-Taher ridge”, a strategic hill overlooking the Nabatieh area. It later reported another strike on the southern town of Deir Zahrani.

Lebanon’s health ministry said seven people were killed “including three children and two women,” in Ansar, where Aoun said “an entire family” had been killed.

The ministry said four other people were killed and 17 others wounded including a child and 11 women in Deir Zahrani, raising an earlier toll of two dead. In Ansar, an AFP correspondent saw a destroyed building as rescuers combed the rubble, and a swimming pool clouded and grey from dust and debris.

Israel responded with heavy airstrikes and a ground invasion that Lebanese authorities say have killed more than 4,300 people

The Israeli military said on Saturday that its strike on the Lebanese village of Ansar targeted a Hezbollah commander. It said it “struck a central headquarters of the Radwan Force”, referring to an elite Hezbollah unit, adding that “the strike eliminated terrorist Ali Samir Al-Haj Hassan, a battalion commander in the Radwan Force”.