Woman and six-year-old child killed in Israeli air strike near Lebanese border

Israel said it hit a Hezbollah command centre near a village

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An Israeli air strike killed a woman and a six-year-old child on Wednesday in the south Lebanon village of Majdal Zoun, six kilometres from the border with Israel, the Lebanese state news agency reported.

The girl, Amal Al Dorr, had left her house to “pick some vegetables to prepare breakfast”, local outlet Al Akhbar reported, following an interview with her father, Hussein.

Amal’s two siblings were at school and could not find her upon their return home, the outlet reported.

Amal’s uncle Hassan Dorr posted a photo of his niece on social media platform X.

“Tomorrow there’s no Amal (hope). Tomorrow there’s no school. Tomorrow, there’s no ‘good morning, uncle’. Tomorrow there’s no ‘take a picture of me and send it to Baba.’ Tomorrow, there is no innocent smile or a ‘high five’,” he wrote.

This is not the family’s first tragedy.

Al Akhbar said Amal’s brother Mahmoud had also been killed by Israeli gunfire, without specifying when this happened.

The girl had asked to go to her family home to “visit and greet her grandfather”, Hussein said.

The Israeli army said it had hit “a Hezbollah operational command centre in the area of Mansouri”, a village a few kilometres from Majdal Zoun.

Lebanon’s National News Agency identified the woman killed in the Israeli strike on Majdal Zoun as Khadija Salman. Her daughter “sustained critical injuries”, the agency said, without offering further details.

Iran-backed Hezbollah said it responded to “Israeli attacks on civilian villages and homes, especially … in Majdal Zoun”, by firing Katyusha rockets at Matzuva, a kibbutz over the border in northern Israel.

The Israeli military said it was “reviewing” claims that civilians were killed as a result of its air strike.

Hezbollah and allied militant groups have been trading fire with Israel almost daily since the Israeli military launched a military offensive in Gaza on October 7. Hezbollah says its campaign is in support of Palestinians in the tiny enclave in southern Israel.

Israel has demanded Hezbollah’s withdrawal of forces 30km from the border and threatened it would continue launching military operations in Lebanon if the condition was not met. Hezbollah has refused to negotiate as long as Israel’s war in Gaza continues.