A local official in southern Lebanon said an Israeli strike on a village Sunday killed a couple and their child, the latest deadly incident in the border region.
Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group have exchanged regular cross-border fire since the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas’s unprecedented October attack on southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza.
Fighting intensified in the past few weeks, with Israel striking deeper into Lebanese territory, while Hezbollah has stepped up its missile and drone attacks on military positions in northern Israel.
“The dad, the mother and their little son were martyred”, according to the Mays al-Jabal municipality chief Abdelmoneim Chukair.
Smoke billows during an Israeli strike on the southern Lebanese village of Tayr Harfa on May 4, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the strike killed “three civilians” and wounded several others.
Hezbollah had on Saturday evening said it fired on military positions in northern Israel.
The Lebanese movement has repeatedly declared that only a ceasefire in Gaza will put an end to its attacks on Israel.
The latest violence came as a Hamas delegation met with mediators in Egypt for talks on a possible truce deal in the Gaza war.
Both the United States and France have made diplomatic efforts to calm tensions on the Lebanese-Israeli border.
In Lebanon, at least 389 people have been killed in nearly seven months of cross-border violence, mostly militants but also more than 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
The toll includes at least 11 Hamas fighters.
Israel says 11 soldiers and nine civilians have been killed on its side of the border.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides.
