Israeli strikes on south Lebanon kill nine in worst toll since June

Rescue services search for survivors and bodies after airstrikes hit homes in Ansar and Deir al-Zahrani

Eleven people have been killed, including three children, and 19 injured in two Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon, the worst toll since deals in June brought a lull in hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah .

Israeli warplanes bombed a home on the outskirts of the village of Ansar, killing seven people and flattening the building early on Saturday morning. Rescue services were working at the site to try to find survivors and locate bodies.

Another airstrike hours later on a home in the town of Deir al-Zahrani killed two, wounded nine and covered the streets in rubble and smoke. An Israeli drone also targeted a motorcycle in the nearby city of Nabatieh, but it was unclear if the driver was killed.

The escalation came despite a June ceasefire in which most fighting between Israel and Hezbollah ended.

Residents of southern Lebanon wondered if the attacks signalled further escalation to come or if it was safe to stay in their homes. Neither village was in Israel’s self-declared “security zone” – a 231-square-mile area occupied by its forces.

The roads out of Nabatieh and the surrounding villages were choked with traffic after the strikes as people fled north in search of safety.

The Israeli military spokesperson, Ella Waweya, said Israel had attacked “Hezbollah infrastructure” in the Ansar and Nabatieh area in response to the group’s fighters attacking soldiers in the Ali Taher area.

Ali Taher is a hill where the Israeli military says large underground Hezbollah command and control centres are located, and it has been shelling the area for months.

The Lebanese prime minister, Nawaf Salam, condemned the Israeli attacks, calling them “extremely dangerous” and said they undermined efforts to establish stability in the south.

He called on Israel to stop the escalation. “The seven martyrs of the Israeli strike on the town of Ansar were not ‘military infrastructure’ and the children and women killed were not military targets,” he said.

Hezbollah condemned the attacks in a statement and said they would be met with a response. The group also accused the Lebanese government of serving Israel’s interests by negotiating with it.

“The Israeli enemy must clearly understand that its attacks, violations and attempts to impose a fait accompli cannot continue, and will be met with an appropriate response in defence of Lebanon,” Hezbollah’s media relations department said.

The latest round of fighting in Lebanon started after Hezbollah struck Israel with rockets on 2 March in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader. Israel responded with an aerial campaign and invasion that killed more than 4,300 people and occupied about 6% of the country’s territory.

Violence has significantly decreased since the signing of a US-Iran memorandum of understanding in June on the broader Middle East war, and a US-sponsored framework deal between Lebanon and Israel agreed later that month.

But Lebanon still reports intermittent Israeli strikes occasionally causing casualties, and the broad demolitions of civilian buildings in southern villages and towns.

The news agency NNA said “the valley between Ansar and Zarariyeh was also subjected to a strike, the first at this geographical depth since the ceasefire two months ago”.

It also said “Israeli warplanes carried out a series of airstrikes targeting the Ali al-Taher ridge”. The news agency said Israeli forces detonated homes in the town of Bint Jbeil near the border.

The Israel-Lebanon framework deal includes the disarmament of Hezbollah, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from south Lebanon, and the deployment of the Lebanese army to the region, starting in “pilot zones”.

On Friday, Hezbollah’s chief, Naim Qassem, accused Lebanese authorities of subjecting the country’s armed forces to undue pressure by implementing the deal. “How can you accept this ongoing humiliation of the Lebanese army, exposing it to bombardment and Israeli pressures, instead of acting as its protectors?” he said.

This week, Human Rights Watch urged the UN to keep an international force in Lebanon after its peacekeepers’ mandate ends this year, saying “peacekeepers are a crucial deterrent against attacks on civilians and human rights abuses”.