At least four people were killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon yesterday, Lebanon’s state news agency reported, and Hezbollah said it launched an attack drone at Israeli forces in the south, straining a ceasefire between the Iran-backed group and Israel.
On the eve of talks in Washington between the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors, Lebanese president Joseph Aoun said Beirut would seek an extension of the 10-day, US-mediated ceasefire, which is set to expire on Sunday.
Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel reignited on March 2, when the Lebanese group opened fire in support of Iran.
The ceasefire in Lebanon emerged separately from Washington’s efforts to resolve its conflict with Tehran, though Iran had called for Lebanon to be included in any broader truce.
More than 2,400 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel launched an offensive in response to Hezbollah’s March 2 attack, according to Lebanese authorities. Israel has seized a belt of territory at the southern border, where its troops remain, saying it aims to create a buffer zone to shield northern Israel from attacks by Hezbollah, which fired hundreds of rockets at Israel during the conflict.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said an Israeli strike hit a car in the south-Lebanon village of Tayri yesterday, killing two people inside.
A senior Lebanese military official said an Israeli drone dropped a grenade on rescuers trying to lift a wounded journalist from rubble in Tayri. The Lebanese army asked the Israeli military, through a US-led mechanism, to allow rescuers to retrieve the wounded journalist, the official said.
The Israeli military said it was not preventing rescue teams from reaching the area, adding that it had struck one of two vehicles that had departed “from a military structure used by Hezbollah” and approached troops in “a manner that posed an immediate threat to their safety”.
It said the people in the vehicles had crossed Israel’s “forward defence line” – its line of deployment in the south – and accused them of violating the ceasefire.
“Reports were received that two journalists were injured as a result of the strikes,” the military said, adding that the details of the incident were under review.
An Israeli airstrike in the southern town of Yohmor killed another two people, NNA and Lebanon’s health ministry said.
Hezbollah said it attacked an Israeli artillery position in southern Lebanon with a drone in response to what it said was an Israeli ceasefire violation.
The Israeli military said it had intercepted “a hostile aircraft” launched by Hezbollah towards Israeli soldiers.
Hezbollah attacks killed two civilians in Israel and 15 Israeli soldiers have died in Lebanon since March 2, Israel says.
Mr Aoun said Beirut’s envoy to today’s talks, Lebanese ambassador to Washington Nada Moawad, would seek a ceasefire extension and a halt to demolitions being carried out by Israel in villages in the south.
A Lebanese official said Beirut wants a ceasefire extension as a prerequisite for talks to expand beyond the ambassadorial level to the next phase, in which Lebanon would push for Israeli withdrawal, the return of Lebanese people detained in Israel and a delineation of the land border.
Hezbollah, which says the Lebanon ceasefire was the fruit of Iranian pressure, has condemned Beirut for seeking talks with Israel, reflecting wider splits with the government that has sought Hezbollah’s peaceful disarmament for a year.
Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar, in a speech, said Israel had taken a “historic decision to negotiate directly with Lebanon after more than 40 years”. He referred to Lebanon as a “failed state”, and called on its government to “work together against the terror state that Hezbollah built in your territory”.
In a speech on Friday, Mr Aoun said a ceasefire should be transformed into “permanent agreements that preserve the rights of our people, the unity of our land and the sovereignty of our nation”.
Lebanon and Israel have remained in an official state of war since the establishment of Israel in 1948.
Lebanon’s most senior Shia official, Nabih Berri, speaker of the parliament, is against face-to-face negotiations with Israel, saying Beirut could have negotiated indirectly.
Lebanon’s leading Druze politician, Walid Jumblatt, said on Tuesday that the most Lebanon could offer is an update to a 1949 armistice agreement with Israel.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio is set to attend today’s meeting. Israel will be represented by its ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter.
Maya Gebeily and Pesha Magid