1 killed and 11 wounded in intense Israeli strikes on south Lebanon
Israel's air force carried out intense airstrikes on mountains overlooking a southern Lebanon city Friday in an attack that the Israeli military said targeted underground assets of militant Hezbollah group.
Shortly afterward, another strike hit an apartment building in the nearby city of Nabatieh, killing one woman, wounding 11 and knocking out the building's top floor, according to Lebanon's state news agency.
It was not immediately clear if that strike targeted anyone in the building.
Since the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war ended with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in November, Israel has carried out almost daily airstrikes on southern Lebanon. Friday's strikes were more intense than usual.
'We are steadfast no matter how much you bomb us with your fighter jets and drones,' Hassan Ghandour, a Shiite cleric from Nabatieh, told The Associated Press at the scene of the strike outside the building.
Lebanon's president and prime minister condemned the Israeli strikes on south Lebanon, saying they violated the ceasefire deal.
The airstrikes on the mountains overlooking Nabatieh came in two waves, and bunker buster bombs were used, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported. NNA said four people were lightly wounded in the airstrikes outside the city.
The Israeli military said in a statement that its fighter jets struck a site used by Hezbollah to manage its fire and defense array in the area and is part of a significant underground project that was completely taken out of use.
The Israeli army said it identified rehabilitation attempts by Hezbollah beforehand and struck infrastructure sites in the area.
There was no comment from Hezbollah.
Hezbollah suffered significant losses on the battlefield during the war, which left over 4,000 people dead in Lebanon and caused destruction amounting to $11 billion. In Israel, 127 people died, including 80 soldiers.
As part of the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah was pushed away from areas bordering Israel in south Lebanon and is not allowed to have an armed presence south of the Litani River.
Friday's airstrikes were north of the river.
___
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
GHF boss defends Gaza aid operation after hundreds of Palestinians killed near sites
The head of a controversial US and Israeli-backed aid group has defended its work after repeated incidents of killings and injuries of Palestinians seeking Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) boss Johnnie Moore told the BBC World Service's Newshour he was not denying deaths near aid sites, but said "100% of those casualties are being attributed to close proximity to GHF" and that was "not true". He accused the UN and other international organisations of spreading information they could not verify. The GHF aid system has been condemned by UN agencies, and on Friday UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres branded it "inherently unsafe". "Any operation that channels desperate civilians into militarized zones is inherently unsafe. The search for food must never be a death sentence," the UN chief Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 500 Palestinians have been killed and 4,000 injured on their way to get aid since GHF took over aid days of GHF operations starting in late May, dozens of Palestinians were killed in separate incidents on 1 and 3 June, sparking international condemnation. Since then, the UN and aid groups have expressed alarm at the near-daily reports of Palestinians being killed near the GHF's sites, which are inside Israeli military and medics have on several occasions described Israeli forces opening fire on crowds near aid newspaper Haaretz published a story on Friday in which unnamed IDF soldiers said they were ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians near aid distribution sites, to drive them away or disperse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly rejected the report calling the allegations "malicious falsehoods".In a statement to the BBC, the IDF said it "did not instruct the forces to deliberately shoot at civilians, including those approaching the distribution centres".It added it was looking to improve "the operational response" in the aid areas and had recently added new fencing and signage, and opened new routes to reach the handout his part, the head of the GHF said "100% of the casualties are being attributed to the IDF - as best as we can tell that's also not true".In statements over the past month, the IDF have several times said they fired "warning shots" at individuals who they described as "suspects" or claimed posed a threat."We spend an extended period of time trying to understand what actually happened, if anything actually happened and whether there's a way that we can make it less likely to happen," Mr Moore said."In most circumstances we haven't been able to identify anything happening.""People need to understand that it is disinformation that people going to GHF sites are being killed, we have no evidence of that happening in proximity to our sites," he does not allow international news organisations, including the BBC, to send journalists into Gaza, which limits our ability to verify what is happening on the ground in the territory. Mr Moore alleged that prior to GHF's operations the majority of UN aid trucks were being hijacked at UN has said there is no evidence for a large-scale hijacking of its aid trucks. When told this, Mr Moore said the "UN is not being honest".The volume of aid entering Gaza is still considered inadequate, despite Israel last month partially easing an 11-week blockade introduced in March. Experts have warned the territory remains on the brink of GHF is hoping to reach the milestone of providing 50 million meals in Gaza, which would equate to less than a meal a day per person since operations pushed on whether food was really getting to the people who needed it most, Mr Moore admitted the operation was "inefficient", but said 50 million meals was more than had been available a month said the GHF needs to scale up and hopefully work with organisations such as the UN."The mission is clear. We just want to feed Gazans," he Thursday, the US State Department announced $30m (£22m; €26m) in funding for the GHF, which is its first known direct contribution to the group. The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken than 56,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Trump says Gaza ceasefire is possible soon
WASHINGTON, June 27 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Friday he believes it is possible that a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict will be reached within a week. Trump, at an Oval Office event celebrating a Congo-Rwanda accord, told reporters that he believes a ceasefire is close. He said he had been just been talking to some of the people involved in trying to reach a ceasefire to hostilities between Israel and Hamas.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Poll: Number of young Americans who side with Iran over Israel
By But when age groups were broken down, the youngest respondents sided with Iran the most. Among 18 and 29-year-olds, 22 percent selected Iran, while 41 percent said Israel, whereas 37 percent indicated that they were unsure. Young people have been the most vocal about how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded to Hamas ' October 7, 2023 terror attack - by bombing Palestinians living in Gaza. 'Looking at these results it's hard to avoid the conclusion that many young Americans have a problem with the Jewish state of Israel,' J.L. Partners pollster James Johnson said. 'It isn't that young people have a positive view of Iran per se - they don't - but that they have such a negative view of Israel that a significant portion of them are ready to side with almost any entity that is against them,' Johnson added. Those voters would be more likely to remember the Iranian Revolution during the late 1970s and early 80s, in which the country's pro-Western Shah was pushed out, with the current Islamic Republic taking its place. The Iran Hostage crisis, in which U.S. embassy employees were taken hostage in Tehran, became a pivotal issue in the 1980 presidential election, helping Republican President Ronald Reagan win the race. Voters between the ages of 30 and 49 came in somewhat in-between their younger and older peers, with 46 percent backing Israel and 15 percent saying they supported Iran. Party identification also showed a split. Among Republicans, 72 percent said they supported Israel, while 5 percent said Iran. With Democrats - a party that has generally been more critical of Netanyahu and the Gaza war - 44 percent said Israel and 14 percent said Iran, with another 42 percent of Democrats saying they were unsure. When voters were asked to if Iran's 'regime is evil and intent on the destruction of Israel' or Iran 'may have differences with Israel, but is ultimately a friendly actor in the region,' the youngest voting bloc was most likely to choose the latter.
