Israeli airstrikes kill 10 Lebanese civilians

NABATIYEH (AP) – The civilian death toll from two Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon has risen to 10, Lebanese state media reported yesterday, making the previous day the deadliest in more than four months of cross-border exchanges.

Israel’s military said it killed a senior commander with the militant Hezbollah group’s elite Radwan Force, Ali Dibs, who it says played a role in an attack inside Israel last year that unnerved Israelis, as well as other attacks directed at Israel over the past four months.

It said Dibs was killed Wednesday along with his deputy Hassan Ibrahim Issa, as well as another Hezbollah operative, in a strike in the southern city of Nabatiyeh.

Hezbollah confirmed three of its fighters were killed and released photos of Dibs and Issa without giving information about their roles in the group. A Lebanese security official, on condition of anonymity, said Dibs escaped a drone strike in Nabatiyeh last week.

The group has vowed to retaliate for Wednesday’s strikes, which hit Nabatiyeh and a village in southern Lebanon, just hours after projectiles from Lebanon killed an Israeli soldier.

On Thursday evening, Hezbollah said it carried out its “initial response” by firing “tens of Katyusha rockets” on the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona.

There was no immediate word on casualties from the town, where most residents have joined the tens of thousands who have fled the area since the fighting began in October.

More Israeli strikes were reported in south Lebanon on Thursday and Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the escalation.

“At a time when we are insisting on calm and call on all sides not to escalate, we find the Israeli enemy extending its aggression,” read a statement from his office.

The Israeli military said Thursday’s strikes targeted Hezbollah infrastructure and launch posts.

Lebanese state media said Israel’s air force carried out strikes near the border towns of Labbouneh, Wadi Slouqi, Majdal Selm and Houla, according to the Lebanese state-run

AP Israeli soldiers walk through a carpet of red anemone wildflowers in bloom in Re’im, southern Israel on Monday, at the site of a cross-border attack by Hamas on the Nova music festival where hundreds of revelers were killed and kidnapped into the Gaza Strip.