“ISRAELI DRONE”
Lebanon’s military said on Saturday its two soldiers “were seriously wounded as a result of being targeted inside a vehicle by a hostile Israeli drone” near the southern city of Nabatieh.
A truce to halt the fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah officially took effect on April 17, but has never been observed. Iran insists that Lebanon be included in any agreement with the United States to end the wider war that engulfed the Middle East region in February.
Both Israel and Hezbollah accuse each other of violating the ceasefire and justify their own attacks by the other’s alleged breaches.
The Israeli military’s evacuation warnings for Saturday included some villages near Nabatieh and some in the east of the country.
Also on Saturday, Hezbollah said it fired rockets at the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona.
The group said it also ambushed Israeli soldiers near Ghandouriyeh in southern Lebanon, saying it forced them to withdraw, and fired rockets at a military base in north Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Friday that Israeli forces had advanced beyond the Litani river that runs around 30km north of the Lebanon-Israel frontier.
“Our forces have crossed the Litani, they have moved up to the commanding terrain,” he said, adding Israel was “hitting Hezbollah head on”.
Israeli strikes on the south killed 11 people on Friday, according to the health ministry in Beirut.
The ministry says that Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,300 people since Mar 2, when Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war in support of its backer Iran.
Hezbollah said it attacked Israel in retaliation for the death of Iran’s supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes when the war erupted on Feb 28.