Lebanese state media reported Israeli airstrikes and shelling overnight into Thursday morning, after Israel announced its first military fatalities in more than a month as renewed hostilities flared.
The strikes – which began Wednesday afternoon and were accompanied by the first evacuation warning in weeks – came as Israel and Lebanon took part in US-mediated talks in Rome, with Beirut seeking Israel’s phased withdrawal from the south.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported that “the Israeli enemy escalated its attacks” on Tyre district with “a series of airstrikes and artillery shelling” that lasted from Wednesday night into Thursday morning.
The agency reported four strikes in the town of Burj al-Shamali, leaving four people wounded.
It also said Israeli aircraft carried out three strikes in and around Mansouri, as “artillery shelling and tank fire” targeted the town simultaneously.
Mansouri’s residents had been warned by the Israeli military on Wednesday to evacuate.
The Lebanese health ministry reported at least one person killed in Wednesday’s strikes.
Israel accused Hezbollah on Wednesday of forcing it to act by violating a ceasefire that had sharply reduced the level of hostilities since June.
Its military later announced that two reservists were killed on Wednesday – the first soldiers to die in Lebanon since June 28.
At the US-backed talks in Rome aimed at ending the fighting, Israel requested that the day’s proceedings end early on Wednesday, a source told AFP, though they were expected to resume on Thursday.
In previous talks in June, Israel and Lebanon agreed to a framework deal that involves the disarmament of Hezbollah, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon’s south and the deployment of the Lebanese army to the region, starting in “pilot zones.”
Iran-backed Hezbollah has repeatedly rejected the talks and refuses to surrender its weapons, and its leader Naim Qassem said on Tuesday that the direct negotiations would bring “nothing but shame, humiliation” and concessions for Lebanon.
Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the wider Middle East war on March 2, firing rockets at Israel in support of its patron Iran.
The violence had waned since the Lebanon-Israel deal and the signing of a preliminary US-Iran agreement on the Middle East conflict, though intermittent Israeli strikes and shelling continued.
Since the fighting in Lebanon first erupted, Israel’s military has lost 38 soldiers and one civilian contractor.
(AFP)
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