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.

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

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.

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

Beirut, Lebanon:

Local rescuers and official media said an Israeli strike killed a woman and a girl from the same family on Tuesday in Lebanon’s south, where the Iran-backed Hezbollah group and Israel have exchanged regular fire.

The strike comes as Hezbollah said it launched drone attacks on north Israel bases earlier in the day, in retaliation for the killing of a fighter Israel described as “significant”.

A civil defence source told AFP that “a woman in her 50s and a 12-year-old girl have been killed” in an Israeli strike while several injured people from the same family were taken to hospital.

Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) confirmed a woman and a child had been killed, adding that “six others were wounded in an enemy air strike on a house in Hanin,” near the Israeli border.

“Enemy warplanes carried out a raid on a two-storey house, firing two air-to-surface missiles and completely destroying it,” the NNA said, adding that the building housed “a family that had not left… since Israeli attacks started”.

Tens of thousands have been displaced on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border since near-daily skirmishes began following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that triggered war in Gaza.

Hezbollah has stepped up its rocket attacks on Israeli positions in recent days, with the latest assault targeting beyond the border area that the group usually strikes.

Earlier Tuesday, Hezbollah said it launched “a combined air attack using decoy and explosive drones that targeted” two Israeli bases north of Acre, while Israel said they did not hit their targets.

The Lebanese group added that the attack was “in response” to an Israeli drone strike that killed one of its members in south Lebanon earlier in the day.

Israel’s army said it had “successfully intercepted two suspicious aerial targets off the northern coast”.

On Tuesday morning, Hezbollah said one of its fighters had been killed by Israeli fire, adding he was a resident of the area where his vehicle was struck. 

A source close to the Iran-backed group told AFP an Israeli drone strike deep into Lebanon killed an engineer working for the group’s air defence forces as he was travelling in a vehicle.

The strike hit the Abu al-Aswad area near the coastal city of Tyre, some 35 kilometres (22 miles) from the border, an AFP journalist reported.

The fighter’s vehicle was completely burnt out.

Hezbollah also said in an overnight statement that another fighter had been killed by Israel.

Earlier Tuesday, the Israeli army had said it killed “two significant terrorists in Hezbollah’s aerial unit” in overnight and morning strikes.

The fighter killed Tuesday was “heavily involved in the planning and execution of terrorist attacks against Israel,” it added.

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.

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