BEIRUT: Israeli strikes on south Lebanon killed 19 people, the health ministry said, as Hezbollah reported clashes with Israeli troops despite a truce in the war. "An Israeli air strike on the town of Deir Qanun al Nahr in the Tyre district resulted in an initial toll of 10 martyrs, including three children and three women, in addition to three wounded," the ministry said in a statement, calling it a "massacre". It said a woman was among nine killed in other strikes across the south, which wounded 29, including six women and a child.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency and photographers also reported a series of strikes that targeted several areas in the Tyre district and Nabatieh province in the south. The top two floors of a building in Maashuq in the Tyre district collapsed after an air strike, according to AFP images. It also damaged neighbouring buildings and parked cars.
The health ministry said a strike on the town destroyed a primary healthcare centre managed by the Hezbollah-linked Islamic Health Committee. An air strike on Tuesday on the Saray neighbourhood in Nabatieh, which includes shops, an old mosque, and traditional residential buildings, destroyed a large part of the area. Images showed a plume of smoke rising from the site. The Israeli military had previously issued evacuation warnings for 12 Lebanese towns, 11 of them in the south and one in the eastern Bekaa area. It later repeated the same warning. Deir Qanun al Nahr, where the 10 people were killed, was not included in the warning.
In a separate statement, the Israeli army said it intercepted a drone from Lebanon. Hezbollah meanwhile said its fighters "clashed.. with a force of the Israeli enemy army that tried to advance towards the vicinity of the town square of Haddatha," adding that "the clashes are still ongoing". It claimed its fighters destroyed an Israeli tank.
Hezbollah also said it carried out several attacks against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon and targeted Iron Dome air defence platforms in different parts of northern Israel, near the border. The Lebanese civil defence said it had lost contact with seven citizens after an Israeli incursion in the southern town of Rashaya al Fukhar. It said that Israeli forces later released four of them, while the other three remain "in Israeli captivity".
Since the start of the ceasefire on April 17, Israel has continued to launch strikes, carry out demolitions and issue evacuation orders in south Lebanon, saying it is targeting Hezbollah. It has also repeatedly issued evacuation warnings for dozens of towns, reaching places far from the border that were housing displaced people.
Israeli strikes on Lebanon have killed more than 3,000 people since March 2, according to Lebanese authorities. The Israeli military on Tuesday said the deputy company commander in the reservist 551st Brigade "fell in combat" in southern Lebanon, bringing to 21 the number killed since the start of the war. One civilian contractor has also been killed in the conflict.
Acil Tabbara Standing before their devastated building in central Beirut, childhood neighbours Wael Sabbagh and Ghida Krisht vow to fight for justice after an Israeli strike killed their family members. On April 8, hours after a ceasefire was announced between the United States and Iran, Israel launched a massive wave of air strikes across Lebanon including the heart of the capital, killing more than 350 people. Sabbagh's mother and brother, and Krisht's parents and another relative, were killed in a strike on a building in central Beirut's well-off Tallet al Khayat district, on what Lebanese now refer to as Black Wednesday. — AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
