Lebanon conflict leaves 16 dead
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Iranbacked Hezbollah movement announced the deaths of eight of its members after a day of cross-border fire with Israel that left at least 16 people dead.
Hezbollah said it had fired a barrage of rockets into northern Israel after its neighbour carried out a deadly strike on southern Lebanon.
One Israeli civilian was killed by the rocket fire as the conflict on Israel’s northern border continues to escalate.
Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian militant group Hamas, has exchanged near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army since Hamas gunmen launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in Gaza.
An official from the Jamaa Islamiya militant group had earlier said seven “rescuers” were killed in Israeli strikes.
Hezbollah said its fighters fired “dozens of rockets” at Kiryat Shmona following what it called “the massacre committed by the Zionist enemy (Israel)” in the south Lebanon village of Habariyeh.
The Israeli military said the target of the strike was “a military compound” and those killed were Jamaa Islamiya militants. It said a “significant terrorist operative” and other members of the group were planning attacks against Israel at the time of the strike.
Relentless fighting continues in Gaza, where heavy overnight Israeli strikes again hit Gaza City and Rafah, where a fireball lit up the sky over the city crowded with up to 1.5 million people, most of them displaced by the war.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said 66 people were killed in overnight bombardment and combat.
Israeli forces have battled militants in and around Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital and more recently near two hospitals in the south.
The army and Shin Bet security service said they were “continuing to conduct precise operational activities … while preventing harm to civilians, patients, medical teams and medical equipment”.
The army said dozens of militants had been killed “in the area” of Al-Shifa and “hundreds of terrorists” had been apprehended.