Israeli strikes kill Hezbollah militant, two others in Lebanon
Lebanon reported two dead in separate Israeli strikes on the country’s south Wednesday, as Israel’s military said it had killed a Hezbollah operative, despite a ceasefire between the two sides. A “drone strike launched by the Israeli enemy on a vehicle in Wadi al-Hujair killed one person”, Lebanon’s health ministry said in a statement, referring to an area around 12 kilometres (seven miles) from the border.
It later said a separate Israeli strike in Hanin, elsewhere in the south near the border, “killed one person and wounded another”. The Israeli military said its air force “struck and eliminated” a member of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force in the Qantara area, near Wadi al-Hujair. Israel has continued to strike Lebanon since the November 27 ceasefire that largely halted more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, including two months of all-out war.
The health ministry also said a 17-year-old wounded in an Israeli strike on south Lebanon’s Aitaroun on Tuesday had died, bringing the toll in that raid to two dead. The Israeli military said that strike also killed a Hezbollah operative. The United Nations Human Rights Office said on Tuesday that “at least 71 civilians” had been killed by Israeli forces in Lebanon since the ceasefire.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said last week that 186 people had been killed since the truce, without saying how many were members of the group. The health ministry has not responded to AFP requests for updated figures. The truce accord was based on a UN Security Council resolution that says Lebanese troops and United Nations peacekeepers should be the only forces in south Lebanon, and calls for the disarmament of all non-state groups.
Under the truce, Hezbollah was to withdraw fighters from south of Lebanon’s Litani River and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure there. Israel was to pull out all its forces from south Lebanon, although it continues to hold five positions that it deems “strategic”.
Lebanon’s army has been deploying in the south near the border as Israeli forces have withdrawn.
