BEIRUT: Israel staged fresh airstrikes in Lebanon on Saturday after earlier raids killed 10 people, according to media and the government in Beirut, targeting an area near the Syrian border.
The state-run National News Agency said there were five Israeli airstrikes shortly before midnight in the mountainous Nabi Sreij area on the outskirts of Brital, which had been spared from attacks since an April 17 ceasefire with Hezbollah.
An AFP correspondent in the southern city of Tyre reported hearing two blasts as one building on the outskirts was struck, then another inside the city, sending plumes of smoke into the air.
On Friday, Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes killed 10 people, including six rescuers and a child, as Israel and Hezbollah continued to exchange fire despite a ceasefire.
In a statement, the Lebanese ministry said “six people were martyred” including two rescuers from the Risala Scouts association and a Syrian girl in a strike on Deir Qanun Al-Nahr village near the city of Tyre.
The association is linked with the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement.
The town was hit by an airstrike earlier this week that killed 14 people, the deadliest single strike since a tenuous ceasefire was announced last month.
An earlier strike on the southern town of Hanaway on Friday killed four rescuers from the Hezbollah-linked Islamic Health Committee, the ministry said.
Separately, the Israeli military said early on Friday morning that it had killed two people close to the border.
“IDF surveillance identified two armed individuals moving in a suspicious manner hundreds of meters from Israeli territory, in southern Lebanon,” it said in a Telegram post.
“Following their identification and continuous monitoring by the IDF, the armed individuals were struck and eliminated in an aerial strike,” the post said.
The Lebanese health ministry distributed a video that it said was in Deir Qanoun En-Nahr, showing two men in yellow vests on the side of a road tending to someone. When an ambulance approaches the two men, a flash is seen and a loud boom goes off. The same men are then seen lying on the floor.
Reuters was able to confirm the location of the video as the western edge of Deir Qanoun En-Nahr from the buildings, trees and road layout which matched archive imagery of the area.
On Friday evening, the Israeli military issued a new evacuation warning for the Lebanese village of Burj Rahal, near Tyre, via its Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee.
He said the military was acting against Hezbollah.
The militant group, meanwhile, said it had targeted Israeli troops and positions inside Lebanon and in northern Israel near the border.
Late night airstrikes
Israel carried out five airstrikes late Friday in eastern Lebanon near the Syrian border after calling for the evacuation of two areas in the south of the country, the state news agency said.
The National News Agency said Israeli warplanes struck shortly before midnight, targeting the Nabi Sreij area on the outskirts of the eastern town of Brital, which had been spared from attacks since an April 17 ceasefire.
Two buildings in and around the southern Lebanese city of Tyre were struck overnight Friday into Saturday, after the Israeli military issued an evacuation warning.
An AFP correspondent reported hearing two explosions as one building on the outskirts of the city was struck, then seeing smoke rising from the scene and smoke rising before civil defence teams arrived.
Shortly afterwards, a second blast was heard inside the city, with smoke also rising from the location.
‘Rage, might and tyranny’
“We are fighting our enemy on the battlefield, and it has grown frustrated by the strength and heroism of our fighters... so it resorts to unleashing the hell of its rage, might and tyranny to destroy your villages and displace you,” the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, Mohammad Raad, said in a message to supporters shared on Friday.
He also repeated the group’s denunciation of direct talks between Israel and Lebanon.
It came after the US announced sanctions against nine Hezbollah-linked individuals it accused of “obstructing the peace process in Lebanon.”
These included two Lebanese military officers accused of sharing information with the group.
Since a truce began on April 17, Israel has continued to launch strikes, carry out demolitions and issue evacuation orders in south Lebanon, saying it is targeting Hezbollah, which has also kept up attacks.
Last week, the fragile ceasefire was extended for 45 days following a third round of direct talks between Lebanese and Israeli representatives in Washington, discussions that Hezbollah staunchly opposes.
Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel on March 2 in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes.
Israel responded with a massive series of airstrikes and a ground invasion in the country’s south, where its troops are operating inside an Israeli-declared “yellow line” running around 10 kilometers (six miles) inside Lebanon along the border.
Lebanon’s health ministry said on Friday that Israeli attacks have killed at least 3,111 people since the wider regional war began.
The dead include 123 medics, as well as more than 210 children and nearly 300 women, according to statistics shared by the health ministry on Friday.
Israel’s military has reported the death of 22 personnel during the fighting.
The World Health Organization reported 169 confirmed attacks on healthcare workers and facilities in Lebanon, resulting in 116 deaths, since the latest Israel-Hezbollah war began.
International humanitarian law affords protection to frontline responders, healthcare workers and civilian infrastructure, including healthcare centres.
Several hospitals in southern Lebanon have been damaged or entirely put out of service by Israeli strikes, according to the World Health Organization.
On Thursday, an Israeli strike near the Tebnine Hospital in southern Lebanon damaged all three floors of the building, including the emergency room, intensive care unit, surgical ward and ambulances parked outside, according to the health ministry.
Loyal to Lebanon
Also Friday, the Lebanese army and the General Security Directorate issued statements declaring that their officers are disciplined, professional and loyal solely to their institutions and the nation.
The statements came a day after the US Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on a group of Hezbollah-affiliated legislators, state security officials and allies of the militant group for allegedly seeking to preserve the Iran-backed group’s influence over Lebanese state institutions and obstruct disarmament efforts.
It was the first time Washington has sanctioned sitting Lebanese state security officials, one from the country’s General Security Directorate and the other from the military intelligence, both of them accused of providing Hezbollah with “illicit support” and intelligence during the ongoing conflict.
