Israel strikes across southern Lebanon despite truce

The Israeli army said Thursday that the strike on the southern suburbs killed “the Commander of Hezbollah’s ‘Radwan Force’ Unit”, an elite unit within the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah. A ceasefire in the war between Hezbollah and Israel began on April 17, but combat has largely not stopped in southern Lebanon. Wednesday’s strike near the capital, however, came as a shock in Lebanon.

AFP photographs taken in the southern suburbs showed the top floors of a residential building totally destroyed, and rescuers searching through the rubble on Thursday morning. Lebanese state media reported Israeli strikes across a number of southern towns and villages, and the Israeli army issued fresh evacuation warnings to three villages north of the Litani River, and outside the area occupied by Israeli troops following their ground invasion of the border area. In the nearby village of Toul, two rescuers from the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee were wounded in an Israeli strike as they were dispatched following a previous attack, spokesperson Mahmoud Karaki told AFP. The team’s ambulance was heavily damaged, he added.