BEIRUT: Lebanese state media reported Israeli airstrikes and shelling overnight into Thursday morning, after Israel announced its first military fatalities in more than a month as renewed hostilities flared.
The strikes — which began on Wednesday afternoon and were accompanied by the first evacuation warning in weeks — came as Israel and Lebanon took part in US-mediated talks in Rome, with Beirut seeking Israel’s phased withdrawal from the south.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported that “the Israeli enemy escalated its attacks” on Tyre district with “a series of airstrikes and artillery shelling” that lasted from Wednesday night into Thursday morning.
The agency reported four strikes in the town of Burj al-Shamali, leaving four people wounded. It also said Israeli aircraft carried out three strikes in and around Mansouri, as “artillery shelling and tank fire” targeted the town simultaneously.
Rights groups term killing of journalist a war crime
Mansouri’s residents had been warned by the Israeli military on Wednesday to evacuate. The Lebanese health ministry reported at least one person killed in Wednesday’s strikes.
Israel accused Hezbollah on Wednesday of forcing it to act by violating a ceasefire that had sharply reduced the level of hostilities since June.
Its military later announced that two reservists were killed on Wednesday — the first soldiers to die in Lebanon since June 28.
Peace talks
At the US-backed talks in Rome aimed at ending the fighting, Israel requested that the day’s proceedings end early on Wednesday, a source said, though they were expected to resume on Thursday.
In previous talks in June, Israel and Lebanon agreed to a framework deal that involves the disarmament of Hezbollah, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon’s south and the deployment of the Lebanese army to the region, starting in “pilot zones”.
Hezbollah has repeatedly rejected the talks and refuses to surrender its weapons, and its leader Naim Qassem said on Tuesday that the direct negotiations would bring “nothing but shame, humiliation” and concessions for Lebanon. Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the wider Middle East war on March 2, firing rockets at Israel in support of its patron Iran.
The violence had waned since the Lebanon-Israel deal and the signing of a preliminary US-Iran agreement on the Middle East conflict, though intermittent Israeli strikes and shelling continued. Since the fighting in Lebanon first erupted, Israel’s military has lost 38 soldiers and one civilian contractor.
War crime
Rights groups said on Thursday that an Israeli attack in south Lebanon that killed reporter Amal Khalil and wounded another journalist earlier this year was an apparent “war crime”. The attack took place in the village of Al-Tiri on April 22, days after a ceasefire was announced between Israel and militant group Hezbollah.
Khalil, a 42-year-old reporter for Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, and freelance camerawoman Zeinab Faraj had taken refuge in a building after an Israeli strike hit a vehicle travelling in front of theirs.
The building was subsequently attacked, and while Faraj was rescued, Lebanese authorities accused the Israeli army of obstructing efforts to save Khalil while she was still alive.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Lebanese rights group The Legal Agenda on Thursday released the findings of separate investigations into the attack.
HRW said the Israeli strikes “included apparently deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian objects, which would make them war crimes”.
Amnesty decried a “direct attack on civilians which should be investigated as a war crime”. Both groups said the Israeli army “knew or should have known” that the pair were civilians, noting Israeli drones were present at the attack site.
The Legal Agenda said its investigation found that the Israeli military’s actions “constitute war crimes and grave violations of international humanitarian law”.
Amnesty said the Israeli army told it that “the incident underwent a preliminary review, and relevant lessons were implemented accordingly”, adding that it “regrets any harm caused to journalists”.
Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2026