At least four people have been killed in Israeli air strikes on eastern and southern Lebanon, according to the country’s Ministry of Health, the latest violation of the ceasefire agreement signed last November.
An attack on Thursday targeted the mountainous areas in the east, killing two people, the ministry said. It later said two others were killed in a separate strike in Arabsalim in southern Lebanon. The official National News Agency (NNA) reported that an elderly woman was among those killed.
The NNA had earlier said that “Israeli warplanes launched a series of violent strikes on the eastern mountain range” in the Bekaa region, near the border with Syria.
It also reported that two Israeli strikes targeted the Hermel range in the country’s northeast.
The Israeli military said it had attacked sites linked to the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah in east and north Lebanon, including “a military camp and a site for the production of precision missiles” in the Bekaa Valley.
The military said in a statement that it “struck several terrorist targets” in the region, including “a camp used for training Hezbollah militants”.
It later announced having also struck “a Hezbollah weapons storage facility in the area of Nabatieh”. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.
Israel has continued launching near-daily assaults on Lebanese territory, particularly in the south, while maintaining a military presence at five border outposts despite the truce requiring a full withdrawal earlier this year.
The conflict erupted in October 2023 after Hezbollah began firing rockets towards Israel in what it said was solidarity with people in Gaza after Israel launched a war on the besieged Palestinian territory.
By the time the ceasefire was reached in November the following year, more than 4,000 people had been killed and almost 17,000 wounded.
The fragile truce is under further strain as Lebanon grapples with a plan pushed by the United States and Israel to disarm Hezbollah, a plan which the group and its allies oppose.
Several Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed at least nine people last month. Israel was also slammed for dropping grenades close to peacekeepers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
