BEIRUT — Three Israeli drone strikes on vehicles just south of Beirut on Saturday killed four people while a series of airstrikes on southern Lebanon killed at least 13, including a man and his 12-year-old daughter, state media and the Health Ministry said.
The three drone strikes south of Beirut marked another escalation since a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect April 17. Both Israel and Hezbollah have continued their daily attacks despite the truce.
On Wednesday night, Israel’s air force carried out an airstrike on a southern suburb in which Israel said it killed a senior Hezbollah military official. It was the first strike near the capital since the ceasefire was announced.
Two of the strikes Saturday took place on the highway linking Beirut with the southern port city of Sidon in which several people were wounded, while the third happened on a road leading to Lebanon’s Chouf region, killing three, the state-run National News Agency said.
An Associated Press journalist at the scene saw a body on the highway in the town of Saadiyat.
The Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike on the southern village of Saksakiyeh killed at least seven, including a child, and wounded 15. The ministry said this was an initial count.
The agency reported strikes in southern Lebanon, including one on the village of Bourj Rahhal that killed three and another in Maifadoun that killed one.
The Health Ministry also said three Israeli drone strikes killed a Syrian man who was riding a motorcycle with his 12-year-old daughter in the city of Nabatiyeh.
The ministry said that after the initial strike, the man and his daughter managed to move away from the site, only to be attacked again by the drone, instantly killing the man. The girl, wounded, then moved about 100 yards away and was hit again by the drone. She later died in a hospital, the news agency said.
“The Ministry of Public Health denounces this barbaric targeting and the deliberate violence against civilians and children in Lebanon,” the ministry said in its statement. It added that the strike marked an ongoing series “of grave violations of International Humanitarian Law.”
The Israeli military said Hezbollah fired attack drones into Israel near the border with Lebanon, and three soldiers were wounded, one seriously, in one of the attacks.
It added that Hezbollah fired drones inside Lebanon as well, one of which hit an Israeli vehicle without inflicting casualties. Hezbollah claimed several attacks in Lebanon, including firing a drone at an Israeli military post in the northern town of Misgav Am.
The latest war between Israel and Hezbollah began March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel, two days after the United States and Israel launched a war on Hezbollah’s main backer, Iran. Israel has since carried out hundreds of airstrikes and launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, capturing dozens of towns and villages along the border.
Later, Lebanon and Israel held their first direct talks in more than three decades. The two countries have formally been in a state of war since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.
The April 17 ceasefire was declared in Washington during those talks. That 10-day truce was later extended by three weeks.
A new round of talks is scheduled in Washington over two days starting Thursday.
In the Syrian capital of Damascus, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam held talks Saturday with Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa in which they discussed strengthening relations between the two neighbors and boosting security cooperation amid regional wars.
Speaking to reporters before heading home, Salam said that Lebanon will not be used again to harm “our Arab brothers, on top of them Syria.” Salam was indirectly referring to Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria’s civil that broke out in 2011 in which it backed the government of then-President Bashar Assad.
Mroue writes for the Associated Press.
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