A shell fired from Israel explodes over the southern Lebanese border village of Khiam. (Rabih Daher/AFP)
- Three people were killed in Lebanon as a result of an Israeli strike.
- Hezbollah fired Katyusha rockets toward Israel.
- Cross-border violence has killed about 622 people in Lebanon and 50 in Israel.
The Lebanese health ministry said a child was among three people killed in an Israeli strike in the country’s south on Thursday, amid ongoing exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group has been trading near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces since Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, sparking war in the Gaza Strip.
The Lebanese health ministry said an “Israeli enemy strike” hit the village of Kfarjouz near Nabatieh, around 10km from the border with Israel.
The strike killed “three people, among them a child, and wounded three others”, the ministry said, without providing further details.
A source close to Hezbollah confirmed that one of the dead was “a fighter in Hezbollah” and the two others were “civilians”.
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Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the strike “targeted two motorcycles on the Nabatieh-Kfarjouz road”, adding that a passing car was also hit.
In a statement posted to Telegram early on Friday, Hezbollah said it had fired a barrage of Katyusha rockets at Israel’s Northern Command “in response to the attack and assassination carried out” in Kfarjouz.
Smoke rises following an Israeli strike on a target between the villages of Ghandourieh and Froun in southern Lebanon amid the ongoing cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. (Ammar Ammar/AFP)
A damaged gate and debris are seen at a football pitch after a reported strike from Lebanon fell in Majdal Shams village in the Israeli-annexed Golan area. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)
The Israeli military said shortly after that “approximately 20 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory” around Safed, where the Northern Command is based.
“Most were successfully intercepted, the rest fell in open areas,” the army said in a statement, adding that no injuries were reported but teams were working to “extinguish the fire that erupted due to a fall in the area”.
Earlier on Thursday, Hezbollah said it had launched a number of attacks on military positions in northern Israel, some with drones.
The Israeli military said at the time that “approximately 15 projectiles” were identified crossing from Lebanon, with some intercepted and no casualties reported.
Men walk past debris and a destroyed car after the top floors of an eight-storey building were destroyed following an Israeli military strike in a Beirut’s southern suburb. (AFP)
The cross-border violence since early October has killed about 622 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including at least 142 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, authorities have announced the deaths of at least 24 soldiers and 26 civilians.
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