Key Points
- An Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon has killed five people, including three children.
- Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun condemned the strike as a “massacre” and urged the world to take action.
- The Israeli military claimed the strike targeted a Hezbollah member but has acknowledged civilian casualties.
An Israeli drone strike killed five people, including three children, in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
Lebanon’s state news agency said the strike hit a motorbike and a vehicle, wounding two others.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said in a statement that a father and his three children were among the dead, with the mother wounded. He said they held US citizenship.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the strike as a “massacre” and called on the international community to press Israel to respect the ceasefire.
“While we are in New York to deliberate on peace and human rights, Israel persists in breaching international resolutions,” Aoun stated, as per a presidency release on X.
The Israeli military said it killed a Hezbollah member in the strike but that “several uninvolved civilians were killed”.
“The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimise harm as much as possible. The incident is under review,” it said in a statement.
Israel has frequently targeted what it calls Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon since a US-brokered truce between Lebanon and Israel took effect in November, following more than a year of conflict sparked by the war in Gaza.
In the face of heavy US pressure and fears of expanded Israeli strikes, the Lebanese government is seeking to disarm Hezbollah.
The Lebanese army reported that Thursday’s strikes increased Israeli breaches of the November ceasefire to 4,500, cautioning that these actions might hinder the disarmament of Hezbollah.
The ceasefire is overseen by a committee including the United States and France, as well as Lebanon and Israel.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, in a post on X, described the latest attack as a “blatant crime against civilians and a message of intimidation aimed at our people returning to their villages in the south.”
Israel has increased the number and frequency of its strikes in Lebanon this week.
On Thursday, the Israeli military said it had struck arms depots belonging to Hezbollah in several areas of southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah has said it would be a serious misstep even to discuss disarmament while Israel is continuing airstrikes on Lebanon and occupying swaths of territory in its south.
