Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon killed at least seven people and wounded others on Saturday (May 2, 2026) as hostilities continued between Israel and Hezbollah despite a ceasefire.

The Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon on Saturday (May 2) came as Israel’s military issued a new warning for residents of nine southern villages to evacuate.

More than 200,000 people have fled Lebanon for Syria since fighting resumed a month ago between Israeli forces and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, the United Nations’ refugee agency said on Tuesday (March 31, 2026).

Lebanon was pulled into the West Asia conflict in early March when Israeli-U.S. strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader and Tehran-backed Hezbollah responded by firing rockets at Israel.

Since then, Israel has struck targets across Lebanon and sent ground troops into its neighbour’s territory. Lebanese authorities say more than 1,200 people have been killed.

“Nearly a month after hostilities intensified in Lebanon, Syria has seen a sharp rise in people crossing the border from Lebanon,” Aseer al-Madaien, UNHCR’s interim representative in Syria, told a press conference by video link from Damascus.

Between March 2 and 27, “more than 200,000 people entered Syria through the three official crossing points”, she said.

“The vast majority — nearly 180,000 — are Syrians, including Syrian refugees who had fled Syria seeking safety in the past in Lebanon and (are) now forced to flee again,” she added.

“More than 28,000 Lebanese have also crossed into Syria,” she told reporters in Geneva.

The figures were provided by the Syrian authorities and confirmed by UNCHR officials on the ground, she said.

Human Rights Watch on Monday (March 9, 2026) accused Israel of “unlawfully” using white phosphorus over residential parts of a southern Lebanese town last week.

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“The Israeli military unlawfully used artillery-fired white phosphorus munitions over homes on March 3, 2026, in the southern Lebanese town of Yohmor,” the New York-based rights group said in a report.

HRW added that it “verified and geolocated seven images showing airburst white phosphorus munitions being deployed over a residential part of the town and civil defense workers responding to fires in at least two homes and one car in that area”.

White phosphorus, a substance that ignites on contact with oxygen, can be used to create smokescreens and to illuminate battlefields.

But the munition can also be used as an incendiary weapon and can cause fires, horrific burns, respiratory damage, organ failure and death.

Israel — which kept up strikes targeting Hezbollah despite a 2024 ceasefire — launched multiple waves of strikes across Lebanon since last week and sent ground troops into border areas after the Iran-backed group attacked it.

The Israeli army has since repeatedly called on people living south of the Litani River, around 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of the Israeli border, to leave.

At least 394 people have been killed in Israeli attacks, Lebanese authorities said, registering more than half a million people as displaced.

“The Israeli military’s unlawful use of white phosphorus over residential areas is extremely alarming and will have dire consequences for civilians,” Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at HRW, was quoted saying in the report.

“Israel should immediately halt this practice and states providing Israel with weapons, including white phosphorus munitions, should immediately suspend military assistance and arms sales and push Israel to stop firing such munitions in residential areas,” he added.

Lebanese authorities and HRW have over the past years accused Israel of using controversial white phosphorus rounds, in attacks authorities say have harmed civilians and the environment.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency on Sunday said Israeli forces targeted the towns of Khiam and Tal Nahas, near the border with Israel, “with artillery and phosphorus shelling”.

Last month, Lebanon accused Israel of spraying the herbicide glyphosate on the Lebanese side of their shared border, with President Joseph Aoun decrying it as a “crime against the environment”.

The ​headquarters of Ghana’s United ‌Nations peacekeeping battalion in ​Lebanon was hit ⁠by missile attacks on Friday (March 6, 2026), leaving two soldiers critically injured, ‌Ghana’s armed forces said in ‌a statement.

Lebanon was ‌pulled ⁠into the war ⁠in the West Asia on Monday (March 2, 2026), when Hezbollah fired rockets ​at Israel ‌that ignited a new Israeli offensive against the group.

Ghanaian soldiers are ‌deployed as part ​of the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon.

The statement ⁠from Ghana’s armed forces did not say ‌who fired the missiles, but it said Ghana’s Foreign Ministry had protested the incident at U.N. headquarters in ‌New York.

In addition to ​the two critically injured soldiers, the statement ⁠said that another soldier “has ⁠been traumatised” while the officers’ mess facility ‌was hit and burned down.

Israeli jets struck several towns in southern Lebanon on Thursday (November 6, 2025) after urging residents to leave, marking an escalation in their near-daily strikes on the country.

The airstrikes came hours after Hezbollah urged the Lebanese government not to enter negotiations with Israel.

Israeli Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee warned residents in Tayba near the border, Tayr Debba located just east of the coastal city of Tyre, and Aita al-Jabal, to flee 500 metres (about 1,600 feet) away from residential buildings they are targeting, which they say has been used by Hezbollah. It later issued another warning for the town of Zawtar al-Sharqiyah, near the city of Nabatieh.

Plan to disarm Hezbollah

The Israeli military said it targeted military infrastructure for Hezbollah in those areas. It accused the group of rebuilding its capabilities almost a year after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire went into effect that ended a monthslong war. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

“We will not allow Hezbollah to rearm themselves, to recover, build back up its strength to threaten the state of Israel,” Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian said at a briefing on Thursday.

The strikes came as Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and his government met in Beirut to follow up on a plan to disarm Hezbollah and other non-state armed groups in the country drafted by the Lebanese military.

Israel’s strikes and ongoing occupation in Lebanon

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has been critical of Israel’s strikes and ongoing occupation of five hill-top points on Lebanese territory but has said he is open to negotiations with Israel to end the tensions.

Israel says its near-daily strikes have targeted Hezbollah officials and military infrastructure, while the Lebanese government that has backed disarming Hezbollah say the strikes have targeted civilians and infrastructure unrelated to the Iran-backed group.

The powerful group’s military capabilities were severely damaged in Israel’s intense air campaign over the tiny country in 2024, but Hezbollah have yet to disarm and its leader Sheikh Naim Kassim has said that the group will be ready to fight no matter how limited their capabilities might be.

Both sides have accused each other of violating the ceasefire, which nominally ended the latest Israel-Hezbollah war last November. The conflict started after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas and the Palestinians, prompting Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling in return. The low-level exchanges escalated into full-scale war in September 2024.

Lebanon’s health ministry has reported more than 270 people killed and around 850 wounded by Israeli military actions since the ceasefire took effect. As of Oct. 9, the UN human rights office had verified that 107 of those killed were civilians or noncombatants, said spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan.

No Israelis have been killed by fire from Lebanon since the ceasefire. Hezbollah has claimed one attack since the agreement took effect.