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Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon on February 11. On Wednesday, the Israeli military said it has begun a series of air strikes in Lebanon. Photo: AFP/File
WorldMiddle East

Israeli strikes on Lebanon kill four including two children, as regional tensions soar, raising fears of wider Gaza war

  • A source said that two children were killed in the strikes, as Israel responded to cross-border rocket fire from Lebanon
  • Since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war on October 7, at least 243 people have been killed in Lebanon, most Hezbollah fighters but also including 30 civilians
Israel
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse
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The Israeli military said on Wednesday its fighter jets “began a series of strikes in Lebanon”, raising fears of a war between the two countries after months of cross-border fire.

The military gave no further details of the strikes, while Lebanese media reported air raids on southern villages including Adchit, Sawwaneh and Shihabiyeh, with one Lebanese security source saying that at least four civilians were killed in the attacks.

“A woman was killed along with her child and her stepchild in a strike that targeted Sawwaneh,” while a fourth civilian was killed in a strike on a building in Adshit, the security source said, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Nine other people were wounded in the strikes in south Lebanon, the source added.

The strikes came hours after fire from Lebanon wounded multiple people in northern Israel, according to doctors.

Seven people were wounded, five of them in the town of Safed, the Magen David Adom emergency service said.

An Agence France-Presse photographer saw doctors and troops evacuating a wounded person by military helicopter from Safed’s Ziv hospital.

There was no immediate claim for the rocket launches from Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which has traded near-daily fire with Israeli troops since the outbreak of the war in Gaza more than four months ago.

If they [Israel] broaden the confrontation, we will do the same
Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah chief
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said on Tuesday, fire from southern Lebanon will end “when the attack on Gaza stops and there is a ceasefire” between the group’s Palestinian allies Hamas and arch rival Israel.

“If they [Israel] broaden the confrontation, we will do the same,” Nasrallah warned in a televised address.

Fears have been growing of another full-blown conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, with tens of thousands displaced on both sides of the border and regional tensions soaring.

“I don’t know when the war in the north is, I can tell you that the likelihood of it happening in the coming months is much higher than it was in the past,” Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi said last month.

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war on October 7, at least 243 people have been killed in Lebanon, most Hezbollah fighters but also including 30 civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse tally.

On the Israeli side, nine soldiers and six civilians have been killed, according to Israeli official figures.

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