BEIRUT: Official media in Lebanon said an Israeli strike Sunday on a southern village killed four family members, with Hezbollah announcing retaliatory attacks, in the latest cross-border violence since the Gaza war erupted.
Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group have exchanged regular cross-border fire since Palestinian militant group Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel sparked war in the Gaza Strip.
Fighting has intensified in recent weeks, with Hamas ally Hezbollah stepping up its attacks on northern Israel, and the Israeli military striking deeper into Lebanese territory.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said Sunday’s strike in Mais al-Jabal killed “four people from a single family”, reporting that the raid was carried out by Israeli aircraft.
It identified the dead as a man, a woman and their children aged 12 and 21, and said two other people were wounded.
A Lebanese security source, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media, confirmed the strike killed “four civilians”.
Mais al-Jabal municipality chief Abdelmoneim Shukair had earlier told AFP that three people were killed, saying they were a couple and their son.
The Israeli military said in a statement later Sunday that “this morning… fighter jets struck a military site in the area of Mais al-Jabal”, without providing further details.