•Troops from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) patrol near the southern Lebanese border village of Kfar Kila
Lebanon said an Israeli strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in the country’s south killed at least 13 people yesterday in an updated toll, as Israel said it struck a Hamas compound.
Israel has kept up strikes on Lebanon despite a ceasefire agreed last November that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah — an ally of Palestinian militant group Hamas — including two months of full-blown war, reports AFP.
Israel usually says it is targeting operatives or sites belonging to the Iran-backed Hezbollah, but it has also struck Hamas operatives in Lebanon, both during the hostilities and since the ceasefire.
In an updated toll, the health ministry reported “13 dead and a number of others wounded” in the strike in the Ain al-Helweh refugee camp on the outskirts of the city of Sidon, adding that “ambulances are still transporting more wounded to nearby hospitals”.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the strike targeted a car near the Khalid bin al-Walid mosque and that “subsequently it was reported that the raid also targeted” the mosque itself and a centre of the same name.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it “struck terrorists who operated in a Hamas training compound in the Ain al-Helweh area in southern Lebanon”, adding that it was “operating against Hamas’s establishment in Lebanon”.
Earlier yesterday, Lebanon said Israeli strikes on cars elsewhere in the country’s south killed two people.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request by our correspondent for comment on those raids.
