At least one killed as Israeli strikes pummel southern Lebanon

Lebanese state media reports civilian casualties after Israeli attack on residential apartment building in Nabatieh.

At least one person has been killed and more than a dozen others were wounded in Israeli air attacks on southern Lebanon, the health ministry has said, as the Israeli military said it struck sites linked to the armed group Hezbollah.

In a report on Friday, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency cited the country’s health ministry saying that a woman and 13 other people were targeted in an air raid that hit a residential apartment building in Nabatieh. Seven others were wounded in air raids on the outskirts of the city, it added.

The Israeli army said its fighters attacked an underground site used by Hezbollah for its fire and defence system in Belfort, a site in the Nabatieh governorate. The military said it identified attempts by the Lebanese group to resume activities there after Israel had taken it out of use in the past.

The resumption of activities there would have been in breach of the November truce agreed by the two sides, which halted more than a year of fire exchanges and nearly two months of an all-out war.

Later on Friday, the Israeli army spokesman said that Lebanese reports that an Israeli drone hit a residential building, causing civilian injuries, “were inaccurate”.

In a post on X, Avichay Adraee said that “the explosion that damaged the civilian building was caused by a rocket located at the Hezbollah site, which detonated as a result of the Israeli strike”.

He accused Hezbollah of “continuing to store its aggressive rockets near residential buildings and Lebanese civilians, thereby putting them at risk”.

Footage shared on social media, and verified by media’s Sanad fact-checking agency, shows large plumes rising from the hill where Israeli aircraft struck their target, as the roar of jets is heard overhead.

The ceasefire deal stipulates that southern Lebanon must be free of any non-state arms or fighters, Israeli soldiers must leave southern Lebanon as Lebanese troops deploy there and all fire across the Lebanese-Israeli border must stop.

Israeli troops remain in at least five posts within Lebanese territory and its air force regularly launches air raids, which it claims target rank and file Hezbollah members or people affiliated with the group.