Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon killed 19 people on Tuesday, the Ministry of Health announced, while Hezbollah reported clashes with Israeli soldiers despite a ceasefire in place. “An Israeli airstrike on the town of Deir Qanoune al-Nahr, in the Tyre district, resulted in an initial toll of 10 martyrs including three children and three women, as well as three injured including a child,” the ministry said in a statement, calling the attack a “massacre.” Among the nine people killed in other strikes across the south, a woman was included with 29 wounded, including six women and a child.
An airstrike on Maachouq, north of Tyre, caused the collapse of the last two floors of a building and damaged nearby buildings and several parked cars. An airstrike on the same location on Monday had destroyed a health care center run by Hezbollah-linked rescuers, the Ministry of Health said on Tuesday. According to the official Lebanese National News Agency (Ani), a strike extensively damaged a neighborhood in Nabatiyeh housing shops, an old mosque, and traditional homes.
The Israeli army had previously urged residents of 12 Lebanese localities to evacuate, including 11 in the south and one in the Bekaa region (east). It later reiterated the same warning. In a separate statement, it announced intercepting a drone that had crossed the border from Lebanon.
Clashes in the south
Meanwhile, Hezbollah claimed to have launched several attacks against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, as well as against Iron Dome batteries (part of the Israeli missile defense system) in northern Israel. The movement also claimed responsibility for multiple attacks on Israeli forces in border areas in the south.
The Lebanese Civil Defense announced on Tuesday that it had lost contact with seven Lebanese after an Israeli patrol infiltrated the outskirts of the Hasbaya region. The Israeli army later released four of them, with the remaining three still “captives of the Israeli enemy,” the Civil Defense added.
Israel and Hezbollah continue their hostilities despite the ceasefire, and the Israeli army has already carried out strikes beyond the “red line” defining a zone about ten kilometers deep in southern Lebanon where Israeli soldiers continue their operations claiming to protect the northern Israeli population from the shots of the pro-Iranian movement. Since the beginning of the war, Israeli strikes have claimed the lives of over 3,000 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities. On the Israeli side, 20 soldiers and a contractor working for the army have been killed in Lebanon since the start of the war on March 2.
