BEIRUT: A Lebanese soldier was among three people killed in an Israeli air strike on a car in the country’s south, the army said Tuesday, denying Israeli claims that he was also a Hezbollah operative.
Israel has kept up regular strikes on Lebanon, usually saying it is targeting Hezbollah, despite a November 2024 ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities with the Iran-backed militant group, which it accuses of rearming.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Monday’s strike on a vehicle was carried out by an Israeli drone around 10 kilometers (six miles) from the southern coastal city of Sidon and “killed three people who were inside.”
The Lebanese army said on Tuesday that Sergeant Major Ali Abdullah had been killed the previous day “in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a car he was in” near the city of Sidon.
The Israeli army said it had killed three Hezbollah operatives in the strike, adding in a statement on Tuesday that “one of the terrorists eliminated during the strike simultaneously served in the Lebanese intelligence unit.”
A Lebanese army official told AFP it was “not true” that the soldier was a Hezbollah member, calling Israel’s claim “a pretext” to justify the attack.
Under heavy US pressure and amid fears of expanded Israeli strikes, Lebanon has committed to disarming Hezbollah, starting with the south.
The Lebanese army plans to complete the group’s disarmament south of the Litani River — about 30 kilometers from the border with Israel — by year’s end.
The latest strike came after Lebanese and Israeli civilian representatives on Friday took part in a meeting of the ceasefire monitoring committee for a second time, after holding their first direct talks in decades earlier this month.
The committee comprises representatives from Lebanon, Israel, the United States, France and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
More than 340 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon since the ceasefire, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry reports.
Lebanese soldier among those killed in Monday Israeli strike: army
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Lebanese soldier among those killed in Monday Israeli strike: army
- A Lebanese soldier was among three people killed in an Israeli air strike on a car in the country’s south
Macron, Iraqi Kurdish leader urge ‘de-escalation’ in Syria
- The Islamist-led authorities in Damascus are seeking to extend their control over all of Syria, after toppling former president Bashar Assad a little over a year ago
PARIS, France: France’s President Emmanuel Macron and the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, in telephone talks on Saturday urged a cessation of fighting in Syria, the French presidency said.
They “called on all parties for an immediate de-escalation and a permanent ceasefire,” it said, after fighting in recent days between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and government troops in the country’s north.
The SDF control swathes of Syria’s oil-rich north and northeast, much of which they captured during the civil war and the battle against the Daesh group.
The Islamist-led authorities in Damascus are seeking to extend their control over all of Syria, after toppling former president Bashar Assad a little over a year ago.
Both sides signed a deal in March last year to merge the semi-autonomous Syrian Kurdish administration and its forces into the new government, but implementation has largely stalled.
Macron and Barzani said they backed “the immediate resumption of talks on integrating the SDF into the Syrian state,” the French presidency added.
