Israel carries out deadly strikes on southern Lebanon in latest ceasefire breach

Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon on Friday killed one person and wounded 20 others, in the latest breach of the 27 November ceasefire between Tel Aviv and Hezbollah.

The "large-scale" strikes took place in Nabatieh, the Kfar Tibnit Heights and Nabatieh Fawqa at 11am local time, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.

"The Israel enemy strike on an apartment in Nabatiyeh led to a preliminary toll of one woman killed" and 13 other people wounded, the ministry said in an updated health ministry statement carried by the official NNA. Earlier, the agency reported that seven people were wounded in separate strikes.

It added that an Israeli drone dropped a sound bomb next to two pickup trucks in the southern town of Ramya while they were loading scrap iron.

Shortly after midnight, Israeli forces fired artillery shells at the Shawat neighbourhood in the town of Aita al-Shaab, where drones also dropped bombs.

In a statement on X, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, said Israel had targeted Hezbollah positions in the Mount Shqif area.

Adraee alleged that Hezbollah had attempted to rebuild an underground facility that had previously been raided by Israeli forces.

Israel has continued to launch strikes on southern Lebanon, despite a ceasefire in November that ended two months of war with Hezbollah.

On Thursday, Israel’s military said it had killed a commander from Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force in the Barashit area of southern Lebanon. The army also claimed the killing of a member of Hezbollah’s reconnaissance unit in Beit Lif.

After suffering major blows to its command structure, including the killing of secretary general Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli strike, Hezbollah has come under increased domestic pressure to disarm.

Lebanese Druze politician Walid Jumblatt on Thursday reiterated this demand, emphasising that “weapons should be in the hands of the state alone, and if any Lebanese or non-Lebanese parties possesses weapons, they should hand them over to the state”.

Jumblatt noted that he had recently informed President Joseph Aoun of the presence of arms in the Druze-majority village of Mukhtara in Mount Lebanon Governorate, and asked for the relevant authorities to confiscate them.

Hezbollah’s latest war with Israel came after a year of exchanges of fire between the two sides, after Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel over its war on Gaza.

Following the November ceasefire, Lebanese authorities have coordinated with Israel in disarming the group and targeting their arms depots.