BEIRUT: Official media in Lebanon said an Israeli strike on Sunday on a southern village killed four family members, with Hezbollah announcing retaliatory attacks, in the latest cross-border violence.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged regular cross-border fire since October 7. 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 confirmed the strike killed “four civilians”.

Mais al-Jabal municipality chief Abdelmo­neim Shukair had earlier said 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.

Hezbollah in a statement said it fired “dozens of Katyusha and Falaq rockets” at Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel “in response to the horrific crime that the Israeli enemy committed in Mais al-Jabal”.

It later said it fired dozens more Katyusha rockets across the border “as part of the response” to the Mais al-Jabal strike, and claimed a string of other attacks on northern Israel, some in stated retaliation to the raid.

The Israeli army said in the statement that “approximately 40 launches were identified crossing from Lebanon... a number of which were intercepted.” “No injuries were reported,” it said, adding the army “struck the sources of the fire”.

It also said “fighter jets struck Hezbollah military structures and terrorist infrastructure” in several areas of southern Lebanon. Lebanon’s NNA reported Israeli strikes on various locations in the country’s south.

Hezbollah has repeatedly declared that only a ceasefire in Gaza will end its attacks on Israel, which it says are in support of Gazans and Hamas.

Both the United States and France have made diplomatic efforts to calm tensions on the Lebanese-Israeli border.

In Lebanon, at least 390 people have been killed in nearly seven months of cross-border violence, mostly militants but also more than 70 civilians, according to a tally.

Israel says 11 soldiers and nine civilians have been killed on its side of the border. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides.

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2024