An Israeli air strike on south Lebanon killed a woman and a girl yesterday, prompting Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement to retaliate with rocket fire.
The Hezbollah movement and Israel have been exchanging near-daily fire across the border since the Israel-Hamas war broke out in the first week of October.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said that Khadija Salman was killed and her daughter seriously wounded in the “enemy” strike on the southern village of Majdal Zun.
Requesting anonymity, a hospital source confirmed the woman had died and her daughter remained in serious condition, adding that a young girl was also killed.
Rescue workers said several other people were wounded and rushed to hospital.
In the evening, Hezbollah said it fired several rockets at the Matzuva kibbutz across the border in Israel “in response to Israeli attacks on villages and civilian homes” including Majdal Zun.
The movement also claimed responsibility for 11 other operations against Israeli military positions on the border.
The cross-border exchanges since October have killed at least 271 people on the Lebanese side, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also including 42 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, 10 soldiers and six civilians have been killed, according to the Israeli army.
Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese village of Khiam near the border, yesterday, amid ongoing cross-border tensions.
