A new ceasefire brokered by the United States and Qatar on Friday between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group collapsed immediately. Saturday’s Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling in southern Lebanon claimed at least five lives, according to the local state media.
New Saturday airstrikes by Israel in southern Lebanon claimed five lives, Lebanese state media reported on Saturday. The attacks occurred despite the announcement of a new ceasefire between Israel and the pro-Iranian Lebanese militant group Hezbollah just a day earlier, TASR reports, according to an AFP report.
- Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon kill at least five people.
- The strikes hit more than ten cities, including the area around the city of Nabatiya.
- US and Qatari negotiators brokered an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah on Friday.
Airstrikes on ten cities and a drone strike on a motorcycle
Lebanon’s state-run NNA news agency reported Israeli airstrikes on more than a dozen locations in southern Lebanon that took place after midnight and during Saturday morning, many of them targeting the area of the city of Nabatiya and its surroundings.
The NNA agency also reported on the Israeli artillery shelling of the city of Nabatia itself and its suburbs, where the heaviest fighting was concentrated in recent days. According to the NNA, three people were killed in airstrikes on the city of Arab Salim, one victim is reported from Deir Zahrani, and another person lost his life after “an enemy drone hit a motorcycle” at the entrance to the city of Duwajr.
The truce failed immediately after it was signed
A US official told AFP on Friday that the immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah had been brokered by US and Qatari negotiators after talks with Israel and Iran. A diplomat from a Persian Gulf country also confirmed the agreement. Israel’s ambassador to the US has declared that his country will respect the ceasefire if Hezbollah respects it as well. However, previous declarations of a ceasefire did not stop the attacks by either side, writes AFP.
The cease-fire announcement came as Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli airstrikes and shelling in the country’s south and east had claimed 47 lives on Friday alone. It was the bloodiest violence since Washington and Tehran struck a framework agreement this week to end a wider war in the Middle East. This agreement was originally supposed to stop the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel’s military said on Friday that four of its soldiers had been killed and reported more than 150 strikes on Lebanon, which it said had killed “dozens of Hezbollah terrorists”.
