Beirut: Israeli drone strikes on southern Lebanon Tuesday killed eight people, including a father and his son and daughter, a day after US President Donald Trump said Israel and Hezbollah agreed to dial back fighting.
Israel threatened Monday to strike Beirut’s southern suburbs, causing panic in the Lebanese capital as thousands fled to safer areas and Hezbollah fired rockets at northern Israel.
Israeli forces recently made their deepest incursion into Lebanon in 26 years, but Beirut has been mostly spared over the past six weeks, apart from two targeted attacks on the city’s southern suburbs in May.
Trump later announced after a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and communicating with the Lebanese militant group through mediators that “there will be no Troops going to Beirut”.
Lebanon’s State-run National News Agency reported Tuesday that an Israeli drone strike hit a car on the road linking the southern town of Marjayoun with the city of Nabatiyeh, killing James Karam, a dentist from the nearby Christian town of Qlayaa, along with his daughter and son. The Lebanese army said two soldiers were lightly wounded when a separate drone targeted them on a road outside the city.
A drone strike on the village of Jibchit killed two Syrians who worked at a plant nursery, the agency reported, while another on the nearby village of Toul killed two people. A third strike hit a car near the village of Harouf, killing one person.
NNA also reported that an Israeli airstrike Monday killed six in the southern village of Marwaniyeh.
Hezbollah said Tuesday its fighters fired anti-tank missiles on Israeli troops who were pushing into the southern village of Hadatha, about 7 km from the Israeli border. Sirens sounded in several areas in northern Israel, the military said in a statement, adding that “a suspicious aerial target” was identified in the area in which Israeli soldiers are operating in southern Lebanon, and that no injuries were reported.
Despite a Washington-brokered ceasefire reached in April, the two sides have continued to exchange strikes after Israel targeted areas in Lebanon, saying it was for self-defence.
The latest exchanges came as a second round of talks between Israel and Lebanon is scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington, where Lebanese negotiators are set to seek a full ceasefire that will prevent future attacks.
The Israel-Lebanon talks that began in April in Washington were the first in more than three decades between the countries, which have no formal diplomatic relations.
The fighting presents a major obstacle to the emerging deal to extend the ceasefire in the Iran war that erupted after the United States and Israel struck the Islamic Kingdom on Feb 28. Tehran wants any agreement to include a complete ceasefire in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has rejected direct talks, counting on pressure from Iran.
The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 3,433 people in Lebanon and displaced more than 1 million people. According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 27 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon. Two civilians have also been killed in northern Israel.
Israel’s military said late Monday that a soldier was killed in southern Lebanon. It added that seven more soldiers were wounded in the incident, three of them severely.
Hezbollah’s use of hard-to-detect fibre-optic drones has been deadly for the Israeli military, which is struggling to respond.
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