BEIRUT: A Lebanese couple and their son were killed Tuesday in an Israeli strike on a house in the southern border village of Hula, Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and Israel have traded deadly cross-border fire on a near-daily basis since war broke out in October between Israel and Gaza’s rulers Hamas, a Hezbollah ally.
“The three civilians, Hassan Hussein, his wife, Ruwaida Mustafa, and their 25-year-old son, Ali Hussein, were killed in the enemy raid on a three-story house in Hula,” NNA said.
“Search operations and the removal of rubble are continuing,” it added.
Shortly before the strike, Hezbollah said it had targeted the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona in response to Israeli attacks on “civilian homes,” particularly Bint Jbeil.
The Lebanese Shiite movement also said it carried out several attacks on Israeli military positions on the border on Tuesday.
NNA had reported on Monday evening that Israeli air raids targeted Bint Jbeil, but no casualties were reported.
Also on Monday, a missile fired from Lebanon killed a foreign worker in Israel, according to the army, and three Hezbollah-affiliated paramedics were killed in an Israeli raid on southern Lebanon, according to Hezbollah.
It came as US envoy Amos Hochstein said a diplomatic solution was key to ending nearly five months of intensifying hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.
“A diplomatic solution is the only way to end the current hostilities” and achieve “a lasting fair security arrangement between Lebanon and Israel,” he said, adding “a temporary ceasefire is not enough.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said there will be no let-up in Israeli action against Hezbollah even if a Gaza ceasefire is secured.
The fighting has killed at least 302 people in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also including at least 51 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
In Israel, at least 10 soldiers and seven civilians have been killed.
Three civilians killed in Israel strike on Lebanon
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Three civilians killed in Israel strike on Lebanon
- Shortly before the strike, Hezbollah said it had targeted the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona in response to Israeli attacks on ‘civilian homes’
- Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said there will be no let-up in Israeli action against Hezbollah even if a Gaza ceasefire is secured
A man detonates explosive belt during arrest attempt in Iraq, injuring 2 security members
- The raid was being conducted in the Al-Khaseem area in Qaim district that borders Syria
- No members of the security forces were killed
BAGHDAD: A man wearing an explosives belt blew himself up Friday while a security force was trying to arrest him in western Iraq near the Syrian border, killing himself and wounding two security members, an Iraqi security official said.
The raid was being conducted in the Al-Khaseem area in Qaim district that borders Syria, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The official added that “preliminary information” confirms that no members of the security forces were killed, while two personnel were injured and transferred for medical treatment.
Iraq’s National Security Agency said in a statement that its members besieged a hideout of a Daesh group security official and two of his bodyguards. One bodyguard ignited his explosives belt, killing him. It gave no further details.
Daesh once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq and declared a caliphate in 2014. The extremist group was defeated on the battlefield in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019 but its sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries.
In December, two US service members and an American civilian were killed in an attack in Syria that the United States blamed on Daesh. The US carried out strikes on Syria days later in retaliation.
US and Iraqi authorities in January began transferring hundreds of the nearly 9,000 Daesh members held in jails run by the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria to Iraq, where Iraqi authorities plan to prosecute them.
