The Lebanese Ministry of Health announced on Sunday the death of at least four people, including two women, during strikes by the Israeli army in the south of the country. Israel says it retaliated against a drone attack by Hezbollah on its soldiers.
Two dead in Nabatiyé el-Faouqa, two women killed in Arab Salim: the provisional toll communicated on Sunday, September 6, by the Lebanese Ministry of Health reports at least four victims in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon. Twenty injured were also recorded, including several women and three children, in these localities as well as in Nabatiyé and Kfar Rumman.
The Israeli army justified its raids by citing the launch by Hezbollah of two drones against its soldiers in the south of the country. This attack caused no injuries on the Israeli side, the army specified, which described the incident as a “blatant violation” of the ceasefire.
Before the strikes, Israel had issued its first evacuation order in several weeks, asking residents located “near a Hezbollah installation” in Arab Salim to leave the area. No similar warning was issued for the other affected zones. The Lebanese National News Agency reported that Israeli fighter jets struck a house in Arab Salim after this warning, destroying it and killing the two women, before then targeting the building designated by the evacuation order.
In Nabatiyé el-Faouqa, a strike destroyed the former Ghandour hospital, a facility out of service for years. In July, a previous Israeli strike near the same site had already cost two lives.
These events are part of a sequence of violence that has intensified since early March, when Hezbollah engaged Lebanon in the regional war by carrying out strikes on Israel in support of Tehran. Israeli reprisals have since caused more than 4,300 deaths according to Lebanese authorities. Clashes have decreased since June, following a protocol between Washington and Tehran and a framework agreement between Beirut and Jerusalem, but Israel maintains sporadic military operations in the south, where it occupies a border strip about ten kilometers wide.
Already on Friday evening, Israeli bombings had killed four people in southern and eastern Lebanon. On Thursday, the Israeli army announced it had taken control of the Ali Taher mountain ridge, a strategic Hezbollah position in Nabatiyé. New talks between Lebanese and Israeli officials are expected this month, though no date has been set.
