Israeli drone strikes kill five, including children, in southern Lebanon

An Israeli drone strike killed five people, including three children, in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil on Sunday, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

Israel has frequently targeted what it claims to be “Hezbollah positions” in southern 

Lebanon despite a US-brokered truce between Lebanon and Israel which took effect in November following more than a year of conflict sparked by the war in Gaza.

Lebanon’s state news agency said the strike hit a motorbike and a vehicle, wounding two others.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said in a statement that a father and his three children were among the dead, with the mother wounded. He said they held US citizenship.

“While the situation is fluid, so far, indications are that the five killed were not US citizens. In fact, one had an unused immigrant visa petition in the past,” a US State Department spokesperson said.

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The Israeli military said it killed a Hezbollah member in the strike but that “several uninvolved civilians were killed”.

“The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimise harm as much as possible. The incident is under review,” it said in a statement.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, in a post on X, described the attack as a “blatant crime against civilians and a message of intimidation aimed at our people returning to their villages in the south.”

Last Friday, Israel killed two people and injured 11 others in an attack against two cars in southern Lebanon. The assassination came a day after Israel launched intensive airstrikes on five towns in southern Lebanon, which the Lebanese Army condemned, warning that this escalation hinders the implementation of its military plan for deployment and arms monopoly south of the Litani River.

In October 2023, Israel launched an aggression against Lebanon, which in September 2024 escalated into a full-scale war, killing more than 4,000 people and wounding approximately 17,000 others, before an agreement was reached in November 2024.

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