One killed as Israel strikes south Lebanon

Lebanon said one person was killed and several others wounded in Israeli strikes in the country's south on Sunday, as Israel said it struck Hezbollah targets.

Despite a November 2024 ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities including two months of all-out war between Israel and the Iran-backed group, Israel has kept up regular strikes on parts of Lebanon and has maintained troops in five southern areas it deems strategic.

Lebanon's health ministry said one person was killed and three others wounded, including two children aged under 18, in an Israeli strike in Ebba in the Nabatiyeh district, which is located in the country's south.

The state-run National News Agency said the strike targeted a vehicle whose driver was killed, reporting a boy was among the wounded when his family's car passed at the time of the raid and crashed.

The Israeli military claimed it struck a Hezbollah operative in the Dweir area, near Ebba, "in response to Hezbollah's repeated violations of the ceasefire understandings".

Earlier Sunday the health ministry said a strike on Qanarit in the Sidon district, far from the Israeli border, wounded one person.

The NNA said the strike targeted a bulldozer "while it was working to remove rubble" from the site of a previous Israeli attack.

The Israeli army claimed it struck "several Hezbollah engineering vehicles" but said they were located in an area of south Lebanon it identified as Mazraat Aboudiyeh.

"The vehicles were struck while being used by Hezbollah terrorists to re-establish terror infrastructure sites in the area," the statement added.

Israel's military has previously targeted bulldozers, excavators and prefabricated houses in south Lebanon, while Lebanese officials have accused Israel of seeking to prevent reconstruction work in the heavily damaged south.

Hospital 'threat'

Also Sunday, the NNA said the Israeli military dropped flyers aiming to intimidate residents in the southern town of  Bint Jbeil near the border.

It published a photograph of one of the alleged leaflets, which bore a warning to residents that Hezbollah operatives were using a hospital in the town.

The health ministry in a statement condemned "in the strongest terms the threats against southern hospitals, and considers them a serious attack and a flagrant violation of international laws and conventions".

Bint Jbeil's Salah Ghandour hospital, which is run by the Islamic Health Committee, said in a statement that the leaflets contained "a clear threat to the hospital on flimsy pretexts with no basis in truth", and rejected what it said were attempts to tarnish the facility's image.

The Salah Ghandour hospital's grounds and its vicinity were struck in 2024 during the war with Hezbollah.

More than 360 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon since the ceasefire, according to an AFP tally of health ministry reports.

Lebanon has moved forward with efforts to disarm Hezbollah under the ceasefire agreement, pledging to assert a monopoly over all weapons and end military dualism in the country. Beirut has repeatedly condemned Israel’s continued strikes and occupation of hilltops in the south, calling on Tel Aviv to halt the attacks and withdraw in accordance with the ceasefire deal.