Beirut —
Lebanon's health ministry said nine people were killed in Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon on Saturday, which the Israeli military said hit an arms depot belonging to Iran-backed Hezbollah.
The casualties in the attack on the Nabatieh neighborhood were the highest in southern Lebanon since the Gaza war began in October, when Hezbollah and Israeli forces engaged in near-daily gun battles across the border.
International mediators are trying to reach a ceasefire agreement in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which diplomats say could help avert a bigger war with Lebanon as the front line.
In a statement, Lebanon's Health Ministry said the dead included “a woman and her two children” and that five people were wounded, two of them seriously.
The Israeli military announced on its Telegram channel that its air force struck a Lebanese Hezbollah weapons storage facility last night in the “Nabatier area,” about 12 kilometers from the nearest point on the Israeli border.
The Israeli military said it had carried out airstrikes on “Hezbollah military facilities” near Hanin and Maroon el-Ras in southern Lebanon on Friday, after also shelling other targets near the southern Lebanese border.
Following the consecutive killings in late July of Hezbollah's chief operational officer in southern Lebanon, Fouad Shukr, and Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, Hezbollah, Iran and other Iranian-backed groups in the region have blamed Israel and vowed revenge.
Israel said Shukr was killed in an attack in southern Beirut but has not commented directly on the killing of Haniyeh, who was visiting Tehran.
Shuttle Diplomacy
Western and Arab diplomats have been milling around the region in an effort to avert a wider conflict.
Mediators on Thursday made a new attempt to push Israel and Hamas towards a ceasefire in Gaza. Talks took place in the Gulf emirate of Qatar and continued into Friday.
Negotiations are expected to resume in Cairo “by the end of next week,” Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators said in a joint statement.
French Foreign Minister Stephane Séjourne said in Beirut on Thursday that a ceasefire in Gaza was “necessary” for peace in the region, including Lebanon.
“We are all concerned about the situation in the region,” Sejourne said after meeting with Lebanon's Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah.
Violence across the Lebanon-Israel border has left 579 people dead in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah fighters but including at least 121 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, which includes the annexed Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 26 civilians were killed, according to military figures.
Hezbollah and Israel fought a war in 2006.
