Strikes kill 14, deadliest day since truce

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes on the country’s south on Sunday killed 14 people, the deadliest day since a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war came into force over a week ago.

It came as Israel and the Iran-backed group traded fresh accusations of breaching the fragile truce, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying the military was “vigorously” targeting Hezbollah and the group vowing to keep responding to “violations.”

Israel’s military has carried out repeated strikes in Lebanon since the 17 April ceasefire, which on Thursday was extended for three weeks, after six weeks of war in which Israel also invaded the country’s south.

Israeli troops are operating inside an Israeli-announced “yellow line,” which demarcates a ribbon of Lebanese territory around 10 kilometers deep along the length of the border, where residents have been warned not to return.

Lebanon’s health ministry said the dead on Sunday included two women and two children, adding that 37 other people were wounded.

Israeli strikes have killed at least 36 people since the truce began, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) tally of health ministry figures.

Israel’s military said Sunday that one of its soldiers was killed “during combat” in southern Lebanon, and six were wounded, four of them severely.

‘Freedom of action’

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported Israeli strikes in multiple locations in the south on Sunday, both in areas where Israel issued an evacuation warning and elsewhere.

AFP correspondents reported heavy traffic heading north as people fled following the warning and intensified raids.

“Hezbollah’s violations are, in practice, dismantling the ceasefire,” Netanyahu told his weekly cabinet meeting.

Tehran-backed Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war on 2 March by firing rockets at Israel to avenge the death of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei in United States-Israeli strikes.