BEIRUT: Lebanon reported two dead in separate Israeli strikes on the country’s south on Wednesday, as Israel’s military said it had killed a Hezbollah operative, despite a ceasefire between the two sides.

A “drone strike launched by the Israeli enemy on a vehicle in Wadi al-Hujair killed one person”, Lebanon’s health ministry said in a statement, referring to an area around 12 kilometres from the border. It later said a separate Israeli strike in Hanin, also near the border, “killed one person and wounded another”.

Israel has continued to strike Lebanon since the Nov 27 ceasefire that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, including two months of all-out war.

The Lebanese health ministry also said that a 17-year-old wounded in an Israeli strike on south Lebanon’s Aitaroun on Tuesday had died, bringing the toll in that raid to two dead.

The United Nations Human Rights Office said on Tuesday that “at least 71 civilians” had been killed by Israeli forces in Lebanon since the ceasefire. Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said last week that 186 people had been killed since the truce, without specifying how many were members of the Hezbollah.

The truce accord was based on a UN Security Council resolution that says Lebanese troops and United Nations peacekeepers should be the only forces in south Lebanon, and calls for the disarmament of all non-state groups.

Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2025