Air raids hit southern Lebanon as drone strike kills one and injures students
The Israeli military carried out barrages of airstrikes in southern Lebanon Wednesday on what it said were Hezbollah sites, including weapons storage facilities, after a drone strike earlier in the day killed one person and wounded several others, including students on a bus.
The new wave of strikes came a day after an airstrike killed 13 people in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, the deadliest of Israeli attacks on Lebanon since a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war a year ago.
Meanwhile, hospitals in Gaza said Israeli strikes killed at least 25 Palestinians.
Israel claims Hezbollah is regrouping
Israel’s military warned Wednesday afternoon it would strike targets in several villages in southern Lebanon, describing them as Hezbollah infrastructure, and called on people to move away from the locations. More than an hour later, strikes began in the villages of Shehour and Deir Kifa.
Israel’s military said Hezbollah was working to reestablish itself and rebuild its capacity in southern Lebanon, without providing evidence. It said the weapons’ facilities targeted were embedded among civilians and violated understandings between Israel and Lebanon. Israel agreed to a ceasefire and withdraw from southern Lebanon last year and Lebanon agreed to quell Hezbollah activity in the area.
Earlier Wednesday, an Israeli airstrike on a car in the southern Lebanese village of Tiri killed one person and wounded 11, including students aboard a nearby bus, the Lebanese Health Ministry and state media said. State-run National News Agency said the school bus happened to be passing near the car that was hit.
Israel’s military later said it killed a Hezbollah operative in the drone strike.
In Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp, just outside the port city of Sidon, life appeared normal Wednesday. Lebanese authorities prevented journalists from entering. At the scene of the strike, paramedics searched for human remains around a wall that was stained with blood. Several cars were burned and broken glass and debris littered the ground.
The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas training compound that was being used to prepare an attack against Israel and its army. It added that the Israeli army would continue to act against Hamas wherever it operates.
Hamas denied in a statement that the sports playground that was hit was its training compound.
Palestinian factions in refugee camps hand over weapons
Palestinian factions in Lebanon’s 12 refugee camps earlier this year began handing over their weapons to the Lebanese state. The government has said that it will also work on disarming Hezbollah, but Hezbollah has rejected it as long as Israel continues to occupy several hills along the border and carries out almost daily strikes.
The U.S. has recently increased pressure on Lebanon to work harder on disarming Hezbollah and canceled a planned trip to Washington this week by Lebanese army commander Gen. Rudolph Haikal.
A senior Lebanese army officer told The Associated Press that U.S. officials were angered by an army statement on Sunday that blamed Israel for destabilizing Lebanon and blocking the Lebanese military deployment in south Lebanon. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.
The latest Israel-Hezbollah war began Oct. 8, 2023, a day after Hamas attacked southern Israel, after Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in solidarity with Hamas. Israel launched a widespread bombardment of Lebanon two months ago that severely weakened Hezbollah, followed by a ground invasion.
That war, the most recent of several conflicts involving Hezbollah over the past four decades, killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians, and caused an estimated $11 billion worth of destruction, according to the World Bank. In Israel, 127 people died, including 80 soldiers.
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