Israeli forces launched devastating attacks early Thursday morning on Lebanon’s fourth largest city, resulting in at least eight fatalities as military operations against Hezbollah continue to escalate before critical discussions in Washington.
Additional individuals sustained injuries during the bombardment, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency confirmed.
In a separate incident, an Israeli soldier lost his life in northern Israel when Hezbollah launched a drone assault, military officials reported.
The heightened military activity follows an announcement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to broaden Israeli military operations in Lebanon, seemingly in response to Hezbollah’s deployment of fiber-optic exploding drones that have targeted Israeli forces in Lebanon and reached northern Israeli border communities.
Military representatives from Lebanon and Israel are scheduled to conduct their initial security discussions Friday in the U.S. capital. These negotiations have prolonged a temporary ceasefire that began April 17, though hostilities have grown more severe while avoiding the Lebanese capital Beirut.
Hezbollah has rejected participation in the discussions and has instead backed its primary partner Iran, which has established an end to the Lebanese conflict as a prerequisite for its own negotiations with Washington facilitated by Pakistan.
Before Thursday’s bombardment began, Israeli military Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee delivered evacuation notices to eight structures in the Mediterranean coastal city of Tyre and nearby areas. Numerous residents have evacuated the region.
In the northern city of Sidon, an Israeli drone targeted an apartment complex housing displaced families.
Mohammad Al-Gharbi, a resident living opposite the struck building in Sidon, was awakened by the blast.
“I was in my room when part of the wall and shattered glass fell on me, and everything was thrown into chaos,” he said. “This building that was hit had six apartments occupied by poor families who had fled from the south to escape the attacks there, only to be hit here.”
In the coastal community of Adloun, an Israeli drone attacked a vehicle carrying a fleeing family, resulting in six deaths including children. A separate drone assault without advance warning killed two individuals on a motorcycle near Tyre. The intended target remained unclear, NNA reported.
Israeli military officials confirmed Thursday that a soldier in northern Israel died in a Hezbollah drone strike and two reservists suffered injuries.
Hezbollah has taken responsibility for numerous drone and rocket strikes that it claims were directed at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.
More than 1 million Lebanese residents have been forced from their homes due to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which began when Hezbollah launched rockets into northern Israel on March 2 in support of Iran, two days after the Iran war commenced.
Israeli strikes have claimed at least 3,269 lives since the war’s beginning, the Lebanese Health Ministry reports, with more than 9,800 people wounded.
Data from Netanyahu’s office indicates that at least 23 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have died in or near southern Lebanon, while two civilians have been killed in northern Israel, primarily from drone attacks.
