An Israeli strike on an army centre in Lebanon has killed one soldier and injured 18 others, the Lebanese military said.
It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes that have killed more than 40 Lebanese troops, even as the military has largely kept to the sidelines in the war between Israel and Hezbollah militants.
The Israeli military expressed regret over the strike, saying it occurred in an area of ongoing combat operations against Hezbollah. It said that its operations are directed solely against Hezbollah and not the Lebanese military, and that the strike is under review.
But Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned it as an assault on US-led ceasefire efforts, calling it a “direct, bloody message rejecting all efforts and ongoing contacts” to end the war.
“(Israel is) again writing in Lebanese blood a brazen rejection of the solution that is being discussed,” a statement from his office read.
The strike occurred on Sunday in south-western Lebanon on the coastal road between Tyre and Naqoura, where there has been heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
Israel has launched retaliatory air strikes since the rocket fire began, and in September the low-level conflict erupted into all-out war, as Israel launched waves of air strikes across large parts of Lebanon and killed Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several of his commanders.
Hezbollah fired barrages of rockets into northern and central Israel on Sunday, some of which were intercepted.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said it treated two people in the central city of Petah Tikva – a 23-year-old man who was lightly injured in a blast and a 70-year-old woman suffering from smoke inhalation from a car that caught fire. The first responders said they also treated three other people in northern Israel, including a 60-year-old man in a serious condition.
It was unclear whether the injuries and damage were caused by the rockets or interceptors.
Hezbollah has continued to fire regular barrages into Israel, forcing people to race for shelters and occasionally killing or wounding them.
Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people, or a quarter of the country’s population.
On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by bombardments in northern Israel and in battle following Israel’s ground invasion in early October. Around 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country’s north.
The Biden administration has spent months trying to broker a ceasefire, and US envoy Amos Hochstein was back in the region last week.
The emerging agreement would pave the way for the withdrawal of Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops from southern Lebanon below the Litani River in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war. Lebanese troops would patrol the area, with the presence of UN peacekeepers.
