Multiple air strikes across southern Lebanon on Friday killed at least 13 people, including women and children, as fighting continues despite a three-week ceasefire extension.
9:24 AM
Israeli air strikes killed at least 13 people in southern Lebanon on Friday, according to the Lebanese health ministry, as military operations continued despite an ongoing ceasefire that began April 16.
The deadliest strike hit the town of Haboush in Nabatieh district, where the Israeli Defense Forces had issued an evacuation order. Eight people were killed there, including two women and a child, with 21 others wounded among them two children and a woman, Lebanese health authorities said.
Four people, including two women, were killed in a separate strike on Zrarieh in Sidon district, with four others injured including a child and a woman. Another person was killed in Ain Baal in Tyre district. In total, 32 people were injured across the strikes on Friday.
The Israeli military said it had hit 40 Hezbollah sites in the past day in renewed air strikes across southern Lebanon. The Israeli army did not immediately comment on the civilian casualties reported by Lebanese authorities.
Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group, said it retaliated with several attacks on Israeli forces within Lebanese territory. On Saturday, Hezbollah said it had targeted Israeli soldiers and military vehicles in Lebanon.
The Israeli military reported that one of its soldiers was killed during combat in southern Lebanon on Thursday.
Additional strikes continued into Saturday. Lebanon's National News Agency reported at least three people killed in an Israeli attack on the town of Shoukine in Nabatieh district. An Israeli strike on a car in the village of Kfar Dajjal killed two people, while a home hit in Lwaizeh killed three others.
The ceasefire, which began three weeks prior to the latest strikes, has been extended but fighting has persisted. Al Jazeera's correspondent reported from the southern Lebanese city of Tyre that the Lebanese Civilian Defence searched through rubble from what was described as a "massive set of air strikes that destroyed a residential neighbourhood."
Israeli troops have been systematically destroying civilian homes, infrastructure and water networks in southern Lebanon, according to observers and activists, who have characterized the destruction as mirroring tactics used in Gaza.
Three consecutive attacks struck rescue workers responding to an airstrike in Mayfadoun, killing at least four paramedics and wounding several others.
At least 11 Palestinians were killed across Gaza and the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, according to Palestinian officials and local media reports.
Amal Khalil, a correspondent for Al-Akhbar newspaper, was killed Wednesday in an airstrike. Lebanon's prime minister accused Israel of war crimes.
A 10-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah began Friday, displacing over one million Lebanese residents and complicating Netanyahu's political position domestically.
Afghanistan's Taliban authorities reported that Pakistani mortars and missiles struck a university and residential areas in Kunar province Monday, killing at least seven people.
Russian forces conducted nearly 100 attacks across three days on Ukrainian region, targeting civilian infrastructure and residential areas.
