Israeli strikes on Lebanon kill at least 17 people amid ceasefire

THREE ISRAELI DRONE strikes on vehicles just south of Beirut killed four people yesterday, while a series of airstrikes on southern Lebanon killed at least 13, including a man and his 12-year-old daughter, the Health Ministry said.

The three drone strikes south of Beirut marked another escalation since a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect on 17 April.

Two of the strikes took place on the highway linking Beirut with the southern port city of Sidon in which several people were wounded, while the third happened on a road leading to Lebanon’s Chouf region killing three, the state-run National News Agency (NNA) said.

The Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike on the southern village of Saksakiyeh killed at least seven, including a child, and wounded 15. The ministry said this was an initial count.

The agency reported strikes in southern Lebanon, including one on the village of Bourj Rahhal that killed three and another in Maifadoun that killed one.

The Health Ministry, meanwhile, said three Israeli drone strikes killed a Syrian man who was riding a motorcycle with his 12-year-old daughter in the city of Nabatiyeh.

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The ministry said that after the initial strike, the man and his daughter managed to move away from the site only to be attacked again by the drone instantly killing the man.

The girl then moved about 100 metres away and was hit again by the drone after she had been already wounded. The girl later died in a hospital, NNA said.

“The Ministry of Public Health denounces this barbaric targeting and the deliberate violence against civilians and children in Lebanon,” the ministry said in its statement, adding that the strike marks an ongoing series “of grave violations of international humanitarian law”.

The Israeli military said Hezbollah fired explosive drones into Israel near the border with Lebanon, adding that three soldiers were wounded, one of them seriously, in one of the attacks.

It added that Hezbollah fired drones inside Lebanon as well in which one hit an Israeli vehicle without inflicting casualties.

Hezbollah claimed several attacks inside Lebanon as well as firing a drone at an Israeli military post in the northern town of Misgav Am.

The latest conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began on 2 March, when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel, two days after the US and Israel launched a war on 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. 

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Later, Lebanon and Israel 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 new round of talks is scheduled to take place in Washington over two days starting on Thursday.

A 10-day ceasefire declared in Washington went into effect on 17 April. The ceasefire was later extended by three weeks.

Last Wednesday, Israel’s air force carried out an airstrike on a southern suburb in which Israel said it killed a senior Hezbollah military official. It was the first strike near the capital since the ceasefire was reached.

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed nearly 2,800 people since 2 March, including dozens since the truce went into force, according to Lebanese authorities.

In the Syrian capital of Damascus, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam held talks on Saturday with Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa in which they discussed strengthening relations between the two neighbours and boosting security cooperation amid regional wars.

Speaking to reporters before returning home, Salam said that Lebanon will not be used again to harm “our Arab brothers, on top of them Syria”.

Salam was indirectly referring to Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria’s civil war that broke out in 2011 by backing the five-decade Assad family rule that ended in December 2024.