10 killed in Israeli airstrike in Lebanon

Beirut, Aug 17 (IANS) Ten people were killed and three displaced Syrians injured early Saturday in an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in southern Lebanon, according to official and military sources in Lebanon.

The sources, who spoke anonymously to Xinhua news agency said that an Israeli warplane carried out a raid early Saturday, firing two air-to-ground missiles on the residential building in the middle of the industrial zone in Wadi al-Kfour, Nabatieh district, deep in southern Lebanon.

Several teams from the Civil Defence and the Islamic Health Authority, equipped with bulldozers and cranes, are still working to remove the rubble of the house, which was destroyed, and transfer the injured to hospitals in Nabatieh, according to the sources.

Military sources indicated that Israeli drones and warplanes launched four raids on four villages and towns in southern Lebanon at dawn and in the morning.

Meanwhile, Israeli artillery shelled eight villages and towns in the eastern, western and central sectors of the border area in southern Lebanon with 35 shells, causing material damage to several homes, sources said.

Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border escalated on October 8, 2023, following a barrage of rockets launched by the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah toward Israel in solidarity with Hamas’ attack on Israel the day before. Israel then retaliated by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon.

The situation escalated further after Israel’s attack on Dahieh in Beirut’s southern suburbs in July, killing a Hezbollah senior military commander, Fouad Shokor, and seven civilians. Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah threatened a definite and painful response to the Israeli raid at the appropriate time and place.

–IANS

int/rs/sd