Israeli air strikes have killed at least 14 people in southern Lebanon amid fears that the continuing violence could threaten the fragile ceasefire between the United States and Iran. Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun said on Friday that at least 13 security personnel were killed in an Israeli air strike on a government building in the southern city of Nabatieh. In a statement, Aoun condemned continuing Israeli attacks and said targeting state institutions would not deter Lebanon from defending its sovereignty.
Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto, reporting from Tyre, Lebanon, said the death toll was likely to increase as civil defence continues to search for survivors in the rubble. Israel has been launching “non-stop” strikes across southern Lebanon since the morning, said Hitto. Earlier, an Israeli air strike on the southern town of Hannawiya killed one person and wounded another, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported.
NNA also said that Israeli forces destroyed residential areas in Aita al-Shaab, with additional attacks on al-Majadel in the Tyre district. Al Jazeera journalists in Lebanon reported that Israeli forces blew up homes in the town of Hanine in the south of the country. The Lebanese group Hezbollah responded by firing rockets towards towns in northern Israel, including Kiryat Shmona, Metula and Misgav Am.
In a statement posted on Telegram, Hezbollah said, “These attacks would continue until the Israeli-American aggression against the country and the people stopped.” Hezbollah also said it targeted Israel’s Ashdod naval base with missiles, two days after deadly Israeli air attacks on Beirut left at least 357 people dead. The attack was in response to Israel’s “violation of the ceasefire and its repeated attacks on Beirut, and after the Resistance adhered to the ceasefire while the enemy did not”, the group said in a statement. Despite the escalation in the south, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr reported a relative lull in Beirut, following Israel’s large-scale, deadly assault on Wednesday.
But the Israeli media is making it clear, and quoting Israeli officials, that there is US pressure on the Israeli government to de-escalate this conflict in Lebanon,” she added. The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday it had received assurances that two hospitals in Beirut included in an Israeli forced evacuation order would not be attacked. About 450 patients remain inside Rafik Hariri University Hospital and Al Zahraa Hospital, as evacuation is not feasible, said Dr Abdinasir Abubakar.
The pressure to end the conflict comes amid food security warnings from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). She warned that food is becoming increasingly unaffordable due to rising prices and higher demand from displaced families, and as the US-Israel war on Iran disrupts supply routes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he ordered direct negotiations with Lebanon “as soon as possible”.
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