Beirut:

A local official in southern Lebanon said an Israeli strike on a village Sunday killed a couple and their child, the latest deadly incident in the border region.

Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group have exchanged regular cross-border fire since the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas’s unprecedented October attack on southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza.

Fighting intensified in the past few weeks, with Israel striking deeper into Lebanese territory, while Hezbollah has stepped up its missile and drone attacks on military positions in northern Israel.

“The dad, the mother and their little son were martyred”, according to the Mays al-Jabal municipality chief Abdelmoneim Chukair.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the strike killed “three civilians” and wounded several others.

Hezbollah had on Saturday evening said it fired on military positions in northern Israel.

The Lebanese movement has repeatedly declared that only a ceasefire in Gaza will put an end to its attacks on Israel.

The latest violence came as a Hamas delegation met with mediators in Egypt for talks on a possible truce deal in the Gaza war.

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

In Lebanon, at least 389 people have been killed in nearly seven months of cross-border violence, mostly operatives but also more than 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

The death count includes at least 11 Hamas fighters.

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.

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Jerusalem:

Israeli forces are carrying out “offensive action” across southern Lebanon, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday without specifying whether ground troops had crossed the border.

“Many forces are deployed on the border and IDF (army) forces are carrying out offensive action currently throughout southern Lebanon,” Gallant said in a statement, also claiming that “half of Hezbollah’s commanders in southern Lebanon have been eliminated” in months of violence.

“The other half are in hiding and abandoning the field to IDF operations,” he added without giving a specific number.

In a separate statement, the army said it had struck 40 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

“A short while ago, IDF (army) fighter jets and artillery struck approximately 40 Hezbollah terror targets” around Aita al-Shaab in southern Lebanon, including storage facilities and weaponry, it said.

The army said Hezbollah “has established dozens of terror means and infrastructures in the area” to attack Israel.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Israel had carried out more than 13 strikes near Aita al-Shaab and surrounding villages.

“Israeli warplanes carried out … more than 13 air strikes targeting the outskirts of the towns of Aita al-Shaab, Ramya, Jabal Balat and Khallet Warda,” it said.

The strikes came after Hezbollah said it fired a fresh barrage of rockets across the border on Wednesday after a strike blamed on Israel killed two civilians.

The group had already fired rockets at northern Israel late on Tuesday “in response” to the civilian deaths.

Cross-border exchanges of fire have flared between the Israeli army and Iran-backed Hezbollah since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza.

Since October 7, at least 380 people have been killed in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also 72 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israel says 11 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed on its side of the border.

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Beirut/Jerusalem:

Four fighters from the Lebanese group Hezbollah were killed along the border with Israel on Saturday, the Iran-backed group said, taking to 17 the number of its members it says have died during two weeks of escalating violence in the frontier region.

A security source in Lebanon said one of the fighters was killed in the Lebanese area of Hula, opposite the Israeli community of Margaliot, which Israel said was the target of an anti-tank missile attack. The Israeli army said it fired back.

Hezbollah later said three other members were killed in the fighting, without providing details. The Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, which also has a presence in southern Lebanon, separately said one of its fighters was killed.

Hezbollah and Israel’s military have been trading fire at the frontier almost daily since Palestinian group Hamas launched a deadly attack on Israel on October 7 and Israel retaliated with fierce airstrikes on Gaza.

It is the worst escalation in violence along the Israeli-Lebanese border since a 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Sources have previously said Hezbollah’s attacks were designed to keep Israel’s military occupied without provoking a major war. Israel has said it has no interest in waging war and said if Hezbollah is restrained it will maintain the status quo.

But rising tensions have raised concerns in the region and beyond about the risk of a wider conflict, as Israel makes preparations for an expected land incursion into Gaza.

The borderlands around Lebanon’s Hula have seen several heavy exchanges of fire recently, prompting Israel this week to evacuate the nearby Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona.

An Israeli army spokesperson said on Saturday evacuating Kiryat Shmona’s residents allowed the military to broaden its actions against Hezbollah, which is an ally of Hamas that also gets support from Iran.

Israel and Hezbollah both reported exchanges of fire on other points along the frontier on Saturday, including around Lebanon’s Alma Al-Shaab and Israel’s Hanita, an area where Hezbollah said it fired guided missiles and Israel responded.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)