Lebanon health ministry says three killed in Israeli strike

A shell fired from Israel explodes over the southern Lebanese border village of Khiam on September 11, 2024. (AFP)

• Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group has been trading near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces

Beirut: The Lebanese health ministry said a child was among three people killed in an Israeli strike in the country’s south on Thursday, amid ongoing exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group has been trading near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces since Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, sparking war in the Gaza Strip.
The Lebanese health ministry said an “Israeli enemy strike” hit the village of Kfarjouz near Nabatieh, around 10 kilometers (six miles) from the border with Israel.
The strike killed “three people, among them a child, and wounded three others,” the ministry said, without providing further details.
A source close to Hezbollah confirmed that one of the dead was “a fighter in Hezbollah” and the two others were “civilians.”
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the strike “targeted two motorcycles on the Nabatieh-Kfarjouz road,” adding that a passing car was also hit.
In a statement posted to Telegram early Friday, Hezbollah said it had fired a barrage of Katyusha rockets at Israel’s Northern Command “in response to the attack and assassination carried out” in Kfarjouz.
The Israeli military said shortly after that “approximately 20 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory” around Safed, where the Northern Command is based.
“Most were successfully intercepted, the rest fell in open areas,” the army said in a statement, adding that no injuries were reported but teams were working to “extinguish the fire that erupted due to a fall in the area.”
Earlier Thursday, Hezbollah said it had launched a number of attacks on military positions in northern Israel, some with drones.
The Israeli military said at the time that “approximately 15 projectiles” were identified crossing from Lebanon, with some intercepted and no casualties reported.
The cross-border violence since early October has killed about 622 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including at least 142 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, authorities have announced the deaths of at least 24 soldiers and 26 civilians.