Lebanon reports third Israeli strike outside Beirut

BEIRUT: Lebanese official media reported a new Israeli strike outside Beirut on Saturday, moments after it reported two strikes on the highway linking the capital to the country's south. The state-run National News Agency said the strike hit the Chouf district, around 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Beirut and not far from a previous strike on the Saadiyat highway. Both areas are outside Hezbollah's traditional strongholds and came despite a ceasefire in the Iran-backed group's war with Israel.
Lebanon said at least one person was killed in Israeli strikes on the country's south on Saturday despite a ceasefire with Hezbollah, after Israel's army issued an evacuation warning to several villages. Israeli forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah have traded fire daily, mostly in southern Lebanon, despite the ceasefire agreement in effect since April 17.
Israel's military had called on residents of nine villages to evacuate, warning that it would act 'forcefully' against Hezbollah after its 'violation of the ceasefire agreement'. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said Israeli warplanes 'launched a strike on the town of Zrariyeh' and several other areas included in the notice. It reported casualties in a strike on a car on a road between two of the locations, and said Israeli air strikes and artillery shelling hit other areas of the south not mentioned in the warning.
The health ministry said an Israeli strike on a motorbike in the town of Nabatieh outside the evacuation areas hit 'a Syrian national and his 12-year-old daughter'. 'After they managed to move away from the site of the first strike, the drone attacked a second time,' killing the father, the ministry said, while the drone then targeted the girl 'directly for a third time', adding that she was undergoing life-saving surgery. It slammed a 'barbaric' attack and 'deliberate violence against civilians and children'.
Hezbollah on Saturday said it targeted northern Israel with a drone in response to repeated Israeli attacks on Lebanon despite an ongoing truce between the two sides. In a statement, the group said that it 'targeted a gathering of Israeli enemy army soldiers near Misgav Am' with a drone in response to 'the Israeli enemy's violation of the ceasefire'.
Meanwhile, European Union crisis management chief Hadja Lahbib on Saturday urged increased humanitarian access in south Lebanon, where Israel has kept up strikes and Hezbollah has been launching attacks despite a ceasefire. 'Humanitarian aid is ready, but too often it cannot reach those who need it most,' Lahbib told a news conference on the second day of her visit to Lebanon, ahead of an expected EU aid delivery.
'South of the Litani River, access is still severely restricted due to evacuation orders and Israeli military activity. And this includes 55 villages below the so-called yellow line,' Lahbib said. The Litani River runs around 30 kilometres from the border, an area where many of the attacks since the ceasefire have taken place. She noted that key infrastructure including bridges over the Litani has been destroyed, 'and that means longer routes, people waiting days and days for help'. 'Even north of the Litani River, where some of these constraints have eased, it is still not enough. We need humanitarian access in full respect of international humanitarian law. Aid cannot save lives if it cannot reach people,' she said. Lahbib said that since the start of the war, the European Union had announced some 100 million euros in new humanitarian support for Lebanon and had sent six planes carrying aid, with a seventh due to arrive in the coming days. — AFP