Israel launched an airstrike on a densely populated Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon late Tuesday, killing at least 13 people and wounding several others, according to Lebanese officials.
It was one of the deadliest Israeli strikes in Lebanon since a cease-fire between the neighboring countries went into effect about a year ago, ending a short but devastating war against the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah.
The Israeli military said it had been targeting a training compound for the armed Palestinian group Hamas, near the southern Lebanese port city of Saida. The compound was being used “for training and exercises in order to plan and carry out terrorist attacks” against Israel and its soldiers, the military said.
It said it had taken steps to mitigate harm to civilians and that it had been “operating against Hamas’ establishment in Lebanon.”
Hamas rejected the Israeli military’s statement, describing it as “pure fabrication and lies.” The group said that “the target was an open sports field frequented by young men” from the refugee camp. “There are no military installations in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon,” Hamas said.
The attack killed people living in Ain al-Hilweh, Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp, the Lebanese health ministry said in a statement. Overcrowded and impoverished, Ain al-Hilweh has long been dominated by rival Palestinian factions.
The strike came nearly a year after Israel reached a cease-fire with Lebanon to end more than a year of fighting with Hezbollah. Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel in solidarity with Hamas after that group led the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel that set off the war in Gaza.
After months of tit-for-tat strikes with Hezbollah, Israel went on the offensive last year. It launched a ground invasion into southern Lebanon, displacing more than one million people, and assassinated most of Hezbollah’s top leadership.
The war was the deadliest conflict in Lebanon in decades, killing about 4000 people.
Since the truce began, Israel has kept up near-daily airstrikes against what it says are Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, with both sides accusing each other of violating the terms of the deal.
Lebanon is home to a sizable Palestinian refugee population, most of them descendants of people who fled or were expelled from their towns and villages in what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding the country’s establishment. Palestinians refer to their mass dispossession as the “Nakba,” or catastrophe.
Many live in crowded camps across the country, where Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas, have long exercised de facto control.
Lebanon’s postwar government has pledged to disarm all militant groups on its territory. That process has already begun in several camps.
Lebanon’s state-run news agency reported on Tuesday that several people injured in the Israeli strike were being taken to hospitals, but it did not say how many had been wounded.
Last month, United Nations experts reported that Hezbollah was recording near-daily cease-fire violations by Israel since the agreement went into effect. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights verified more than 100 civilian casualties in Lebanon as a result.
Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
Euan Ward is a Times reporter covering Lebanon and Syria. He is based in Beirut.
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