The strike on a two-story building in Nabatiyeh, one of Lebanon’s main southern cities, comes as both sides have resorted to increasingly belligerent rhetoric in recent days.
Five people were injured Wednesday evening in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon, according to the official Lebanese agency Ani, amid fears of an extension of the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. This strike on a two-story building in Nabatiyeh, one of the main cities in southern Lebanon, comes at a time when the two belligerents have resorted to increasingly bellicose rhetoric in recent days.
In mid-February, seven civilian members of the same family were killed in a strike against the town of Nabatiyeh carried out in retaliation for an unclaimed rocket attack from Lebanon on a military base in northern Israel, which killed a soldier. Since the start of the war on October 7 between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, which supports the Palestinian Islamist movement, has exchanged daily fire on the border with the Israeli army, and this violence has recently gained in intensity.
Intensification of strikes
On Wednesday, after two relatively calm days, Israel again intensified its strikes on southern Lebanon, shelling around ten border localities, Ani said. “Around 10 p.m., enemy aircraft (Israeli, editor’s note) carried out a violent airstrike against a building in the town of Nabatiyeh, completely destroying it”Ani said, adding that five people near the building were injured and taken to hospital.
Ani also reported 14 minor injuries. «par suffocation». Clouds of smoke and dust covered the area as residents of damaged homes nearby called for help, the agency said. Hezbollah, for its part, claimed six attacks against Israeli military positions on the border on Wednesday.
More than eight months of violence between Hezbollah and the Israeli army have left at least 481 dead in Lebanon, including a majority of Hezbollah fighters and 94 civilians, according to an AFP count. On the Israeli side, at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians were killed, according to Israel. UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned Wednesday that an extension of Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to Lebanon would be “potentially apocalyptic”.
