Lebanon’s health ministry reported at least 12 people killed, including two children and a paramedic, in a series of Israeli airstrikes on Thursday in spite of a ceasefire.
The new deaths came a day after Israel killed a Hezbollah commander in its first attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs since the shaky truce sought to end weeks of fighting.
In separate statements, the health ministry reported 11 people killed, two of them children, in strikes on three different villages in Nabatieh district.
Another strike in Marjayoun district killed one paramedic from the Hezbollah-affilitated Islamic Health Committee rescue service and wounded one more, the ministry said, decrying the attack as a crime.
A strike earlier in the day in Nabatieh district had wounded two other paramedics from the same organisation, according to a spokesperson.
Lebanese state media had reported Israeli strikes across a number of southern towns and villages on Thursday, and the Israeli army issued fresh evacuation warnings for three villages north of the Litani River – outside the area still occupied by its troops following their ground invasion.
The Israeli army said on Thursday that its strike the day before on the capital’s southern suburbs had killed “the Commander of Hezbollah’s ‘Radwan Force’ Unit”, an elite unit within Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said that “no terrorist is immune” from Israeli strikes, and vowed the same for “anyone who threatens the State of Israel”.
A ceasefire in the war between Hezbollah and Israel began on 17 April, but combat has continued in southern Lebanon.
Wednesday’s strike near Beirut, however, came as a shock in Lebanon.
AFP photographs taken in the southern suburbs showed the top floors of a residential building totally destroyed, and rescuers searching through the rubble on Thursday morning.
Other Israeli strikes on the southern city of Nabatieh targeted a shopping centre and residential buildings, state media and an AFP correspondent said.
The Israeli military said in a statement Thursday that an “explosive drone impact” wounded four soldiers – one severely — in southern Lebanon the previous day.
Hezbollah has regularly vowed to respond to Israel’s daily violations of the ceasefire with retaliatory attacks.
Since Lebanon was dragged into the Middle East on 2 March following the US-Israeli joint assault on Iran, Israeli strikes have killed more than 2,700 people in the country.
