Israeli Strikes Kill 14 Across Southern Lebanon As Iran Issues Warning

Israeli attacks across southern Lebanon killed at least 14 people and left dozens injured after Iran warned it would take “crushing measures” if Israel continued its assault on Lebanon.

The deaths on Monday followed an exchange of fire between Iran and Israel, the sharpest confrontation since their “ceasefire” started on April 8. The latest surge in violence began after Israel struck Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, on Sunday.

Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that an Israeli attack close to a Red Cross centre in the southern coastal city of Tyre killed five people and injured eight, among them four paramedics. The strike also caused damage to a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Tyre, while officials urged people still in the city to stay away from public gatherings.

In the Sidon district farther north, an Israeli air raid on al-Marwaniyah killed two people, one of them a child. Ten more people were hurt, including four women.

Another Israeli strike hit Zefta in the Nabatieh district, killing seven people and wounding eight. A Syrian child and a woman were listed among those killed. Israeli artillery also fired on the nearby village of Touline.

Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed movement battling invading Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, said it conducted 16 operations against Israeli forces, including actions near the strategic Beaufort Castle. The group said it destroyed two Israeli military bulldozers in Yohmor al-Shaqif near the castle and attacked several enemy troop concentrations. It also said it brought down an Israeli drone flying over Iqlim al-Tuffah.

Lebanon became part of the US-Israel war on Iran on March 2, when Hezbollah, aligned with Tehran, launched rockets into northern Israel. The group said it was responding to ongoing Israeli attacks on Lebanon and to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on February 28.

Although Washington and Tehran agreed to a ceasefire on April 8, Israel has continued its military campaign in Lebanon, arguing that the Lebanon and Iran fronts are separate. Iran has repeatedly said any peace arrangement with the United States must also stop the fighting in Lebanon.

As Iran’s military announced on Monday that it was ending strikes on Israel, it warned that further aggression, including in southern Lebanon, would face “much more severe and crushing measures”.

Israeli Minister of Defence Israel Katz dismissed the warning and said Israel would keep targeting Hezbollah. He also promised attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs if northern Israel came under fire. “Any Iranian attempt to link Lebanon and Iran and attack Israel will be met with great force,” he said.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Monday that since April 16 Israel had carried out almost 3,500 air strikes, 407 demolitions and six so-called “razing” operations, which he said had levelled entire villages.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said the Israeli offensive that began on March 2 has now killed 3,637 people and wounded 11,188 others. More than one million residents, about one-fifth of the country’s population, have been forced from their homes.

According to Salam’s office, government shelters “have reached maximum absorption capacity in Beirut, Sidon, and all other regions”.

The International Rescue Committee also cautioned that Lebanon’s humanitarian emergency was deteriorating, saying 94 percent of displaced people were unable to meet basic needs. Rick Bartoldus, the IRC country director for Lebanon, said many people going back to the south were finding homes or whole villages destroyed. “The humanitarian needs are massive, and if we have any hope of recovery, we need to see a lasting ceasefire,” he told Al Jazeera.