SIDON: Lebanon said an Israeli strike on the country’s largest Palestinian refugee camp killed two people on Friday, with Israel’s army saying it had targeted the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The official National News Agency said “an Israeli drone” targeted a neighborhood of the Ain Al-Helweh camp, which is located on the outskirts of the southern city of Sidon.
Lebanon’s health ministry said two people were killed in the raid. The NNA had earlier reported one dead and an unspecified number of wounded.
An AFP correspondent saw smoke rising from a building in the densely populated camp as ambulances headed to the scene.
The Israeli army said in a statement that its forces “struck a Hamas command center from which terrorists operated,” calling activity there “a violation of the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon” and a threat to Israel.
The Israeli military “is operating against the entrenchment” of the Palestinian militant group in Lebanon and will “continue to act decisively against Hamas terrorists wherever they operate,” it added.
Israel has kept up regular strikes on Lebanon despite a November 2024 ceasefire that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities with the militant group Hezbollah.
Israel has also struck targets belonging to Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally Hamas, including in a raid on Ain Al-Helweh last November that killed 13 people.
The UN rights office had said 11 children were killed in that strike, which Israel said targeted a Hamas training compound, though the group denied it had military installations in Palestinian camps in Lebanon.
In October 2023, Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israel in support of Hamas at the outset of the Gaza war, triggering hostilities that culminated in two months of all-out war between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group.
On Sunday, Lebanon said an Israeli strike near the Syrian border in the country’s east killed four people, as Israel said it targeted operatives from Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.