BEIRUT\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon killed at least seven people and wounded others Saturday while the Israeli military demolished parts of a Catholic convent in a border village, officials said.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s military issued a new warning Saturday for residents of nine southern villages to evacuate. Israel and Lebanon\u2019s militant group Hezbollah have kept up their attacks despite a ceasefire in place since April 17.<\/p>\n
In the border village of Yaroun, Israel\u2019s military used bulldozers to destroy parts of a Catholic convent that had been empty as a result of the latest fighting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we heard is that it was destroyed with bulldozers,\u201d said Gladys Sabbagh, the superior general of the Basilian Salvatorian Sisters. Sabbagh told the Associated Press that the convent included a school that had been closed since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war as well as a clinic that was recently moved to the nearby village of Rmeich.<\/p>\n
She described the convent as a small compound housing just two nuns, who left because of the war. Sabbagh did not have further details, as Yaroun\u2019s residents have been displaced.<\/p>\n
Conflicting versions of events<\/p>\n
The Israeli military issued a statement saying that as the army was destroying Hezbollah infrastructure in Yaroun, a house that had no religious signs was damaged. It added that as soon as the military knew it was linked to a church, soldiers \u201cprevented any further damage from being done.\u201d<\/p>\n
The military added that Hezbollah used the compound in the past to fire rockets toward Israel on several occasions. It said it does not strike religious institutions intentionally. <\/p>\n
The Catholic Church in Lebanon rejected claims that the compound was used for military purposes. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are against all practices against places of worship and churches. These are places to spread peace, love and education,\u201d said the Rev. Abdo Abou Kassm, director of the Catholic Center for Information. \u201cThese are not military bases.\u201d<\/p>\n
The demolition at the convent came days after images of an Israeli soldier wielding an ax against a fallen statue of Jesus on the cross in the southern Lebanese village of Debel sparked widespread condemnation, in Lebanon and internationally.<\/p>\n
Attacks continue<\/p>\n
In other parts of southern Lebanon, Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah attacks continued. <\/p>\n
Lebanon\u2019s state-run National News Agency reported that an airstrike on a car in the village of Kfar Dajal killed two people and another hit a home in the village of Lwaizeh, killing three. Two others were killed in a strike on the village of Shoukin, it said. <\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s military Arabic-language spokesperson, Lt. Col. Ella Waweya, posted on X that the Israeli air force carried out about 50 airstrikes over the last 24 hours targeting Hezbollah infrastructure and members.<\/p>\n
Hezbollah said that it launched a drone attack against Israeli troops who gathered Saturday in a house in the coastal village of Bayed. <\/p>\n
In recent weeks, the Israeli army has been leveling neighborhoods in towns and villages near the Lebanese-Israeli border. The military says it destroys buildings that were used as outposts by Hezbollah.<\/p>\n
The Israeli military released a new video that it said shows Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon being blown up. The video, released Friday, shows soldiers holding an Israeli flag and walking among the destruction of a soccer stadium in the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil. The military said on its website that the air force \u201cdestroyed the town\u2019s stadium after it was discovered to be booby-trapped.\u201d<\/p>\n
The latest war between Israel and Hezbollah began March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel, two days after the United States and Israel launched a war on the militant group\u2019s main backer, Iran. Israel has since carried out hundreds of airstrikes and launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, capturing dozens of towns and villages along the border.<\/p>\n
Since then, Lebanon and Israel have held their first direct talks in more than three decades. The two countries have formally been in a state of war since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. A 10-day ceasefire declared in Washington went into effect April 17. The ceasefire was later extended by three weeks.<\/p>\n
The Lebanese Health Ministry said that since the war began two months ago, 2,659 people have been killed and 8,183 wounded. <\/p>\n
Mroue writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Ibrahim Hazboun in Jerusalem contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BEIRUT\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon killed at least seven people and wounded others Saturday while the Israeli military…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[33335,33333,16525,100,33336,37,9641,9061,72,93,20293,1583,973,5406,8055,33334],"class_list":{"0":"post-94520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lebanon","8":"tag-border-village","9":"tag-catholic-convent","10":"tag-church","11":"tag-hezbollah","12":"tag-hezbollah-infrastructure","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-israel-hezbollah-war","15":"tag-israeli-airstrike","16":"tag-israeli-military","17":"tag-lebanon","18":"tag-place","19":"tag-soldier","20":"tag-southern-lebanon","21":"tag-town","22":"tag-village","23":"tag-yaroun"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116506181172490965","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}