Israeli air strikes on Lebanon kill 41 people in 24-hours

Strikes on Saturday killed at least 10 people, raising the death toll from Israeli strikes on Lebanon since March 2 to 2,659, with 8,183 others injured.

Smoke rises in Habboush following Israeli strikes, as seen from Nabatieh, Lebanon [Stringer/Reuters]

Israel has launched multiple strikes across southern Lebanon, killing at least 10 people in further violations of the “ceasefire” declared two weeks ago.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said the latest wave of attacks on Saturday increased the total recorded over the previous 24 hours to 41. The overall death toll since March 2 is 2,659, with 8,183 injured.

Quoting the health ministry, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) said three people were killed in an Israeli attack on the town of Shoukine in Nabatieh district.

An earlier attack on a car in the village of Kfar Dajjal killed two people. Three others were killed when a home was hit in the village of Lwaizeh. A strike on the village of Shoukin killed two people, NNA reported.

Israeli forces carried out an air strike near al-Quds roundabout in the city of Nabatieh, and warplanes attacked the town of Siddiqine in Tyre district.

Israel continues to violate the ceasefire that began on April 17 and was later extended until mid-May.

Israel claims its attacks target the pro-Iran Lebanese group Hezbollah, but many of the dead were civilians.

More than one million people in Lebanon have been registered as displaced since the outbreak of the war.

Hezbollah says attacks will continue

Despite the rising death toll, Hezbollah on Friday pledged to continue attacks on Israeli forces inside Lebanese territory.

The group said it targeted multiple gatherings of Israeli soldiers and vehicles in several front-line towns in southern Lebanon. The attacks included artillery strikes on troops near Moussa Abbas complex in Bint Jbeil and the village of Hula. Drones were used to attack soldiers in Biyyada.

Hezbollah has recently been using small drones controlled by fibre-optic cables to hit Israeli tanks. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed.

Attack drones also targeted military hardware, including a Humvee truck in the town of Taybeh and a Merkava tank in Rishaf.

The latest war between Israel and Hezbollah began on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel two days after the United States and Israel attacked its main backer, Iran.

Israel has since carried out hundreds of air strikes and launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, capturing dozens of towns and villages along the border.

A 10-day ceasefire declared in Washington started on April 17 and was extended by three weeks.

Reporting from Beirut, Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands said the ceasefire exists in name only.

“Essentially, it’s a diplomatic construct. The reality is that, certainly down in the south, the war continues, and, in fact, it is expanding,” he said.

On Friday, China’s envoy to the United Nations told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York that there is no real ceasefire in place, only a “lesser fire”.

“It is incumbent on Israel to stop this bombardment of Lebanon,” Fu Cong said, as China assumed the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council for May.

Reporting from Amman in Jordan, Al Jazeera’s Jack Barton said Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is coming under intense pressure from all quarters to abandon the ceasefire.

“The majority of the Israeli public is against it. The opposition is against the ceasefire. And all week, the army has been saying they are ready to re-engage, to broaden the conflict if they get the green light,” he said.

“On Friday, senior officers were telling multiple Israeli media outlets that they were frustrated, that they believe the ceasefire was causing harm for Israeli soldiers, who are seeing daily injuries now from these first-person view fibre-optic cable drones increasingly used by Hezbollah.”

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