Israeli drone attacks in southern Lebanon kill one and injure several people in latest violation of ceasefire
Beirut
Israel has carried out four drone attacks on towns in southern Lebanon, resulting in a death and several injured, in the latest wave of near-daily Israeli violations of the November ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
An 'Israeli enemy drone attack on a vehicle' in the Saf al-Hawa area in the city of Bint Jbeil 'killed one person and wounded two others', Lebanon's Ministry of Public Health said in a statement on Saturday carried by the official National News Agency (NNA), noting the toll was expected to rise. A second attack in the Bint Jbeil area followed.
Earlier Saturday, the ministry also reported that a separate Israeli drone attack wounded one person in Shebaa, with the NNA saying that raid hit a house. Shebaa is located across two steep, rocky mountainsides that straddle Lebanon's borders with Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Israel also launched a drone attack on the town of Chaqra, in the Bint Jbeil District. Lebanon's Health Ministry said two people were wounded in the attack.
Israel has kept up its bombardment of Lebanon on a near daily basis, despite a November 27 US-brokered ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, including an intensive period of the war that left the Iran-aligned group severely weakened.
Israel says its air raids are targeting officials and facilities of Hezbollah and other groups. Hezbollah has claimed only one strike fired across the border since the ceasefire. Most of the Israeli strikes have been in southern Lebanon, but Israel has also struck Beirut's southern suburbs several times since the ceasefire, destroying residential buildings and prompting panic and chaos among residents fleeing the area.
On Thursday, an Israeli strike on a vehicle at the southern entrance of Beirut, close to the country's only commercial airport, killed one man and wounded three other people, Lebanon said, as the Israeli army claimed it hit a 'terrorist' working for Iran.
Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani River, about 30km (20 miles) from the Israeli border, leaving the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the region.
Israel was required to fully withdraw its troops from the country but has kept them in five locations in southern Lebanon that it deems strategic.
Israel has warned that it will keep attacking Lebanon until Hezbollah has been disarmed.
Nearly 250 people have been killed and 609 wounded in Israeli attacks in Lebanon between November 28 – the day after the ceasefire took effect – and the end of June, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.
A United States envoy is expected in Beirut early next week to discuss with Lebanon's leadership efforts to pressure Hezbollah to relinquish its arms to the state. Hezbollah has rejected a US proposal to disarm by November, calling it 'suicidal' amid daily Israeli attacks.
Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun has repeatedly called on the US and France to rein in Israel's attacks, noting that disarming Hezbollah is a 'sensitive, delicate issue'.
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