CEASEFIRE AT RISK:
An Israeli strike on a motorbike hit ‘a Syrian national and his 12-year-old daughter,’ and the drone hit them twice more, Lebanese authorities said
Israel on Saturday carried out strikes across Lebanon, killing at least nine people in the south, with raids also targeting a highway not far from Beirut outside of Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds.
The fresh attacks were some of the most intense since the start of a three-week-old ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah that has done little to halt daily exchanges of fire, mostly in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah on Saturday said that it had targeted troops in northern Israel with drones on at least two occasions in response to the continued strikes.
Photo: Reuters
The Israeli military said “several” explosive drones were launched into Israeli territory, with one army reservist severely wounded and two others moderately injured in one of the attacks.
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported a series of Israeli strikes across the south, including one on the town of Saksakiyeh.
The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said that raid “resulted in an initial toll of seven martyrs, including a girl, and 15 wounded, including three children.”
The Israeli military said it struck “Hezbollah terrorists operating from within a structure used for military purposes” in Saksakiyeh.
It added it was “aware of reports regarding harm to uninvolved civilians in the structure in which the terrorists were struck. The details of the incident are under review.”
The Lebanese ministry reported that another Israeli strike on a motorbike in the city of Nabatieh hit “a Syrian national and his 12-year-old daughter.”
“After they managed to move away from the site of the first strike, the drone attacked a second time,” killing the father, the ministry said, adding that the drone then targeted the girl “directly for a third time.”
The girl was undergoing life-saving surgery, it added.
In the southern town of Bedias, the health ministry said one person was killed in an Israeli strike and 13 wounded, including six children and two women.
Israel’s military had called on residents of nine villages to evacuate, saying it would act “forcefully” against Hezbollah, but neither of the two locations of the fatal strikes were included in the warnings.
NNA also reported that the “Israeli enemy launched two strikes on the Saadiyat highway,” referring to a location around 20km south of Beirut and outside areas where Hezbollah has traditionally held sway. It later reported a third strike nearby.