Thirty-nine people have been killed in another day of intense Israeli strikes in Lebanon, the country’s health ministry said.

One Israeli strike on the southern town of Saksakiyeh killed at least seven people, including a child, the ministry said.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had been targeting Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and was “aware of reports regarding harm to uninvolved civilians”.

Israeli forces and Hezbollah have continued to trade fire since US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire deal between the governments of Israel and Lebanon on 16 April.

Most of Israel’s air strikes have hit southern Lebanon, with the military saying it is striking infrastructure and people linked to Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia and political party.

On Saturday, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli strikes across the south, including in Saksakiyeh.

The health ministry said that raid “resulted in an initial toll of seven martyrs, including a girl, and 15 wounded, including three children”.

The IDF said it struck “Hezbollah terrorists operating from within a structure used for military purposes” in the area.

“Prior to the strike, steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians as much as possible, including the use of precise munitions and aerial surveillance,” it said.

Details of the incident are under review, it added.

The Lebanese health ministry reported that another Israeli strike on a motorbike in Nabatieh hit “a Syrian national and his 12-year-old daughter”.

“After they managed to move away from the site of the first strike, the drone attacked a second time,” killing the father, the ministry said, adding the drone then targeted the girl “directly for a third time”.

The girl was undergoing life-saving surgery, it added.

Meanwhile Hezbollah targeted northern Israel with a drone, which the Israeli military said wounded three soldiers.

According to Lebanon’s health ministry, Israeli attacks have killed more than 120 people across the country in the last week, including women and children. The ministry does not distinguish combatants from civilians.

The Israeli military also occupies a strip of Lebanese land along the border, and officials say the aim is to create what they describe as a Hezbollah-free security zone to protect Israel’s northern communities.

In those areas, entire villages have been destroyed, in actions similar to the ones deployed by the Israeli military in Gaza. Rights groups say some cases could amount to war crimes.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, has carried out attacks on Israeli troops in Lebanon and northern Israel with rockets and drones.

The group said it targeted northern Israel with a drone on Saturday in response to continued Israeli attacks.

The Israeli military said it had identified “an explosive drone launched by the Hezbollah terrorist organisation” near the border in the north. It said three army reservists were injured in the attack, one of them seriously.

Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire ending a previous conflict in November 2024, after which Israel carried out near-daily attacks on targets and people it said were linked to Hezbollah.

After the US and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February and killed Iran’s supreme leader, Hezbollah launched rockets and drones into Israel in retaliation on 2 March.

In response, Israel bombarded Lebanon with air strikes. Israeli forces re-entered southern Lebanon in early March, where they have destroyed villages and remained occupying 10km (6.2 miles) of Lebanese territory.

A total of 2,795 people have been killed in Lebanon since 2 March, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

Israeli authorities have said that 17 soldiers and one civilian have been killed in southern Lebanon, along with two civilians in northern Israel.

Source: BBC
-- Agencies