BEIRUT: Four relatives of a journalist were killed on Sunday in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, the official Lebanese news agency said, adding that the journalist was also wounded.
The border area between the two countries has seen regular exchanges of fire, in particular between Iran-backed group Hezbollah and Israel, since the start of the Israel-Hamas war triggered by the Palestinian group’s October 7 attacks.
Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) said the four victims are the sister of radio correspondent Samir Ayoub and her three grandchildren, aged 10, 12 and 14.
They were following the journalist’s car in another vehicle when they were killed.
Ayoub later appeared on the local television channel Al-Jadeed, wearing a bloodstained shirt, and described pulling his niece from the car, the sole survivor of the five people inside it.
Prime Minister Najib Mikati denounced the attack as an “abhorrent crime committed by the Israeli enemy,” and saying the cars had been targeted by drones.
On X, formerly Twitter, the foreign ministry cited Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib as saying he would bring the matter to the attention of the UN Security Council on Monday.
Shortly after the incident, Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement said it fired Katyusha rockets at the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona in response to this “heinous crime.”
In a statement, Hezbollah said it would never tolerate attacks on civilians and its response would be “firm and strong.”
“The enemy will pay the price for its crimes against civilians,” Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said late Sunday “Hezbollah targets were attacked in the north in response to an anti-tank missile attack that killed an Israeli civilian,” without specifying where the civilian died.
Hagari added that among the targets hit by Israel were “vehicles” and that aircraft destroyed the launch site for a long-range missile.
Earlier Sunday, four rescue workers were injured in an Israeli bombing in southern Lebanon that hit two ambulances, according to the association that owned the vehicles and state media.
NNA said an Israeli strike targeted two ambulances belonging to the Risala Scout association, which operates rescue teams and is affiliated with the Shiite Amal movement, a Hezbollah ally.
The association said “a drone from the Israeli occupation forces deliberately targeted... the two vehicles, causing moderate injuries to four paramedics.”
It said the attack took place at dawn when the two ambulances were called to evacuate wounded in the village of Tayr Harfa, some three kilometers (two miles) from the border with Israel.
The Israeli army said it had used a drone to target a “terrorist cell that attempted to fire from Lebanon toward the area of Rosh Hanikra in northern Israel.”
It said troops had observed “two suspicious vehicles” in the area, but said “the strike was directed at the terrorist cell and not at the vehicles.”
Since October 7, at least 81 people have been killed on the Lebanese side in cross-border skirmishes, according to an AFP tally, including 59 Hezbollah fighters.
Hezbollah said three of its fighters were killed on Sunday.
Six soldiers and two civilians have been killed on the Israeli side.
On October 13, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed and six other journalists, including two from AFP, were wounded while covering the cross-border fighting in southern Lebanon.
Lebanese authorities have accused Israel of being behind the strikes.
Rising tensions on the border have raised concerns that the Israel’s war to destroy Hamas in Gaza could become a wider conflagration.
In his first speech since the fighting erupted between Israel and Hamas, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Friday accused the United States of being “entirely responsible” for the war.
He also warned Israel against the “folly” of an attack on Lebanon, adding that halting its “aggression against Gaza” would prevent a regional conflict.
