Woman killed, 6 people wounded in Israeli strikes as fighting with Hezbollah continues

 

Lebanon's ministry of health said a woman was killed and six other people wounded, including a girl, a woman and two elderly people, in Israeli airstrikes Thursday in or around the southern town of Arab Salim.

The Israel Defense Forces had announced airstrikes in southern Lebanon earlier, saying they targeted "Hezbollah infrastructure in the Nabatieh area" including purported weapons storage facilities belonging to the Iran-backed group that the IDF said had been "established in order to harm Israeli civilians" and soldiers.

"The strikes were carried out in response to the Hezbollah terrorist organization's actions overnight (Thursday) against IDF soldiers operating in the Ali-Taher Ridge within the Security Zone, in which they launched two explosive drones toward IDF soldiers. No IDF injuries were reported," the IDF said.

Despite a ceasefire brokered by the U.S., Israel has continued launching attacks on Hezbollah, always labeling them responses to Hezbollah truce violations, almost daily. 

Israeli soldiers have occupied a section of southern Lebanon that extends some six miles from the country's shared border, calling it a "security zone" and expelling thousands of Lebanese residents. 

Israel will not withdraw its forces, the country's political and military leaders say, until the threat posed by Hezbollah is eradicated.

The ongoing fighting between Israel and Lebanon has been a consistent thorn in the side of efforts by Pakistan, Qatar and others to broker a peace deal between the U.S. and Iran, which demands a halt to fighting on all fronts, including in Lebanon, as part of any peace agreement.