By Nazih Osseiran and Eman Abouhassira
BEIRUT, Aug 15 (Reuters) - At least 11 people were killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Saturday, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah infrastructure overnight in what it described as a security zone in south Lebanon in response to actions against its soldiers.
Seven people were killed when Israeli warplanes struck a house in the southern village of Ansar, while four others were killed in a strike on the village of Deir El Zahrani, Lebanon’s official National News Agency said.
Nineteen people were wounded in the attacks.
The strikes were among the deadliest in the weeks since Lebanon agreed to a U.S.-mediated peace framework with Israel. The deal leaves Israeli troops inside occupied southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed and the Lebanese army takes control, terms the Iran-backed group has rejected as surrender.
NNA also reported several other airstrikes across southern Lebanon, including on a strategic area north of the Litani River known as Ali al-Taher hill. One Israeli airstrike, targeting a valley next to Ansar, was the deepest strike into Lebanon in two months.
In a statement, Hezbollah said the attacks on Lebanon would be “met with what they deserve”.
The seven killed in Ansar included three children and two women, state news said.
In a statement on X, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire and attacking Israeli soldiers leading to three injuries in the so-called security zone. The office appeared to acknowledge that civilians were hit, but accused Hezbollah of using human shields.
“The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) responded by striking the Hezbollah terror headquarters which ordered the attack,” the statement said. “Only later did the IDF learn that Hezbollah deliberately put civilians in that military compound.”
The Israeli military said in a statement it killed Ali Samir Al-Haj Hassan, a commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force and unit and others when it struck “a central headquarters of the Radwan Force unit,” in Ansar.
“At the time of the strike, Hassan’s family was also present with him inside the military headquarters and, according to the claim, was harmed in the strike,” the statement added, emphasising that the family was not the target of the strike.
Lebanese officials condemned the attacks.
“The martyrs of the Israeli raid on the village of Ansar are not ‘military infrastructure’ and the women and children killed in it are not military targets,” Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said in a post on X.
Israel’s military seized a swathe of southern Lebanon during its war with Hezbollah earlier this year, triggered after the group fired at Israel two days into the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Israel has said it will keep its forces there to protect northern Israel from further attacks.
During a visit to southern Lebanon on Thursday, Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel would not withdraw from areas under its control until Hezbollah was disarmed. A U.S. State Department official said a permanent Israeli military presence there was not consistent with commitments set out in the deal with Lebanon’s government.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, in a statement on X, said the attacks were a “clear message” aimed at the negotiations and the U.S. efforts towards implementing the framework agreement.
At least 4,300 people have been killed in Lebanon in the latest round of hostilities since March 2.
(Reporting by Eman Abouhassira, Emily Rose, and Nazih Osseiran. Writing by Nazih Osseiran. Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Mark Potter)
