BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli strike killed three people Tuesday in the country’s south, the latest such raid despite a November ceasefire with the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group.
“The strike launched by an Israeli enemy drone on a vehicle” in the Bint Jbeil district “resulted in the death of three people”, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official National News Agency (NNA).
Israel has kept up regular strikes on Lebanon, particularly in the south, since a November 27 ceasefire meant to end over a year of hostilities, including two months of all-out war that left Hezbollah badly weakened.
Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani river, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the Israeli border, leaving the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the area.
Israel was required to fully withdraw its troops but has kept them in five locations in south Lebanon that it deems strategic.
The Lebanese army has been deploying in the south and dismantling Hezbollah military infrastructure there.
On Monday, the Israeli military said it struck “military sites belonging to Hezbollah, containing rocket and missile launchers, along with weapons storage facilities north of the Litani River”.
The statement said that “the presence of weapons and Hezbollah’s activity constitutes a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon”.
The NNA reported a series of Israeli strikes on several areas on Monday including in the Jezzine region.
Earlier this month, Israel warned it would keep striking Lebanon until Hezbollah has been disarmed.
