Israeli drone strikes near Beirut and across southern Lebanon killed at least 17 people on Saturday, marking another breach of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah. Three drone strikes on vehicles just south of Beirut killed four people, while a series of airstrikes on southern Lebanon killed at least 13, according to state media and the Lebanese Health Ministry.
The three drone strikes south of Beirut took place on the highway linking Beirut with the southern port city of Sidon, where several people were wounded, and on a road leading to Lebanon's Chouf region, which killed three people, the state-run National News Agency said. An Associated Press journalist at the scene saw a dead body on the highway in the town of Saadiyat.
The Health Ministry reported an Israeli airstrike on the southern village of Saksakiyeh killed at least seven people, including a child, and wounded 15. Additional strikes hit the villages of Bourj Rahhal, killing three, and Maifadoun, killing one.
Among those killed was a Syrian man and his 12-year-old daughter in the city of Nabatiyeh, struck multiple times by an Israeli drone. The Health Ministry said that after the initial strike, the man and his daughter moved away from the site only to be attacked again by the drone, instantly killing the man. The girl then moved about 100 metres away and was hit again by the drone after she had already been wounded, later dying in hospital, according to the National News Agency.
The strikes represent a continuation of hostilities since a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect on April 17. Both Israel and Hezbollah have continued their daily attacks despite the truce. On Wednesday, Israel's air force carried out an airstrike on a southern suburb in which Israel said it killed a senior Hezbollah military official, marking the first strike near the capital since the ceasefire was reached.
The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health denounced the strikes as a "barbaric targeting" and "deliberate violence against civilians and children in Lebanon," characterising the attack as part of an ongoing series of grave violations.
