10 Syrians killed in Israeli airstrike on Nabatieh region, Hezbollah retaliates
Lebanon's health ministry said an Israeli air strike overnight in southern Lebanon killed 10 Syrians, as the Israeli military reported hitting "weapons stores" of Hezbollah.
The toll from the strike in the Nabatieh area is one of the largest in southern Lebanon since Hezbollah and Israeli forces began exchanging near-daily fire over their border after war in the Gaza Strip began in October.
International mediators have been trying to reach a Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants, which diplomats say could help to avert a wider war in which Lebanon would be on the front line.
The death toll from the latest strike included "a woman and her two children" while five other people were wounded, most of them also Syrian, Lebanon's health ministry said in a statement.
The official Lebanese National News Agency reported that the casualties were Syrian refugees and workers.
Israel's military, on its Telegram channel, said the air force had struck a weapons storage facility of Lebanon's Hezbollah overnight "in the area of Nabatieh," which is about 12 kilometers (seven miles) from the nearest point of the Israeli border.
Mohammad Shoaib, who runs a slaughterhouse in Wadi al-Kfour, said the area struck was an “industrial and civilian area” that contained factories producing bricks, metal, and aluminum, as well as a dairy farm.
The uncle of three of the people killed in the strike said they were factory workers who were in their housing accomodation when they were hit. He denied that there were weapons at the facility.
“There was nothing at all like that,” Hussein Shahoud said. “There was metal for construction, for building, for all kinds of purposes.”
Hezbollah later announced it had fired a volley of rockets at the settlement of Ayelet HaShahar, near Safad in northern Israel in retaliation for the strike. The statement said that all 10 victims in Lebanon were civilians. Hezbollah typically issues death notices when its members are killed.
The Israeli army said 55 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon, some of which fell in open areas. No injuries were reported, but the strikes ignited multiple fires, it said. Earlier Saturday, two Israeli soldiers were injured, one seriously, by a strike coming from Lebanon that hit the area of Misgav Am.
Israeli artillery hit other targets near the border in southern Lebanon, the military said, after air strikes Friday on "Hezbollah military structures" near Hanine and Maroun el-Ras in southern Lebanon.
The killings in quick succession in late July of Fouad Shukur, a top operations chief of Hezbollah in south Lebanon, and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, led to vows of vengeance from Hezbollah, Iran and other Tehran-backed groups in the region which blamed Israel.
Israel claimed the killing of Shukur, in a strike on south Beirut, but has not commented directly on the killing of Haniyeh while he visited Tehran.
- Shuttle diplomacy -
In an effort to avert a broader conflict, Western and Arab diplomats have been shuttling around the region.
On Thursday, mediators made a new bid to push Israel and Hamas toward a ceasefire in Gaza. Talks took place in the Gulf emirate of Qatar and continued on Friday.
The negotiations are set to resume in Cairo "before the end of next week," the Egyptian, Qatari and United States mediators said in a joint statement.
French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said Thursday in Beirut that a ceasefire in Gaza was "necessary" for peace in the region including Lebanon.
"We are all worried about the regional situation," Sejourne said after meeting Speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah.
The cross-border violence between Lebanon and Israel has killed 580 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but including at least 128 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.
Hezbollah and Israel last fought a war in 2006.
