Lebanon says 19 killed in Israeli air strikes in the south
Israeli air strikes have killed at least 19 people in southern Lebanon, according to the country's health ministry. The ministry said the dead included civilians, with ten people killed in a single strike on a house in Deir Qanoun. It said the attack also wounded three people, including a young girl.
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The ministry said three children and three women were among those killed in Deir Qanoun. It added that a further nine people were killed and 29 injured in strikes in the Nabatieh and Tyre districts. The latest deaths came less than a week after the United States said Lebanon and Israel had agreed to extend a ceasefire by 45 days, with talks due to resume at the beginning of June.
The strikes come amid continued exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah despite the ceasefire extension. Israel says it is targeting Hezbollah, while the armed group has continued to fire rockets and drones into northern Israel and at Israeli troops occupying parts of southern Lebanon. The health ministry said the number of people killed in Lebanon by Israeli strikes during the conflict since March has now surpassed 3,000.
The latest casualties underline how fragile the situation remains along the Lebanon-Israel frontier. The ceasefire arrangement has not stopped cross-border fire, and both sides have continued to accuse each other of attacks. The continued strikes also raise the risk of further civilian harm in areas where fighting has repeatedly affected towns and villages in southern Lebanon.
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Lebanon was drawn into the war on 2 March, when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in retaliation for US-Israeli strikes that killed Iran's supreme leader, according to the account provided by the health ministry report. Since then, the conflict has involved repeated air strikes, rocket fire and drone attacks, with Israeli ground forces still occupying a strip of territory about 10km from the Lebanese frontier. Hezbollah has also said its fighters have clashed with Israeli forces near Haddatha and attacked Israeli troops and air defence platforms near the border.
What remains unclear is the full breakdown of the dead and injured across all strike locations, and whether there will be any immediate change in the pattern of attacks. The Israeli military has been contacted for comment, but no response was included in the supplied material. The next key development will be whether the ceasefire talks due in June produce any reduction in hostilities or whether the exchanges continue at the current pace.
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