Israeli strike kills 10 in southern Lebanon in one of the deadliest incidents since October 7
By Tamara Qiblawi, Kareem El Damanhoury, Eugenia Yosef and Sarah El Sirgany, CNN
(CNN) — An Israeli strike has killed at least 10 people in Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said, prompting Hezbollah to launch a barrage of retaliatory rockets at Israel.
All of those killed in Lebanon were Syrian nationals. A woman and her two children are among the dead, according to the ministry.
The strike also wounded at least five. They include three Syrians, one Sudanese and one Lebanese, the ministry said. Two of the Syrians are in critical condition and undergoing surgery at a nearby hospital.
Israel’s military said it struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility in the area of Nabatiyeh overnight.
The death toll from the strike is one of the largest in southern Lebanon since Israel launched its war on Gaza following the Hamas attacks of October 7 that killed around 1,200 people.
Mohamed, 14, was about to go to sleep when he saw a missile hit a warehouse nearby. He told CNN that rescuers worked through the night to retrieve the dead bodies from under the rubble, where they found a decapitated body and a severed arm.
Pointing to the sky buzzing with the sound of an unseen drone, Mohamed said: “They are always flying over here 24/7, sometimes they fly so low you can see them.”
Referring to the victims, who are believed to all be Syrian migrants, Haitham, a Syrian national guard at a nearby company, said: “They escaped one war and got killed in another.”
Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon launched a volley of rockets towards Ayelet Hashahar in northern Israel in response to the strike, the group said in a statement.
Israel’s military confirmed that sirens had sounded in Ayelet Hashahar after “approximately 55 projectiles” crossed from Lebanon. “No injuries were reported,” the Israel Defence Forces said.
In a separate incident, the IDF said one of its soldiers was severely injured and another lightly wounded after a projectile from Lebanon fell in Misgav Am.
Also on Saturday, a drone struck and killed a person on a motorcycle in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, according to Lebanon’s state-owned National News Agency (NNA).
Hezbollah and Israeli forces have been exchanging almost daily cross-border fire since Israel launched its war on Gaza, which has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in 10 months.
Tensions between Lebanon and Israel deepened further late last month when an Israeli strike on Lebanese capital Beirut killed the top military commander for Hezbollah, Fu’ad Shukr. Israel is widely believed to have assassinated Hamas’ political leader the next day in Tehran, Iran. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement in that incident.
This has prompted speculation of looming retaliatory attacks on Israel by Hezbollah and Iran. Two sources familiar with the intelligence told CNN earlier this month that Hezbollah looks increasingly like it may strike Israel, independent of what Iran may intend to do.
Given Lebanon’s proximity to Israel as its direct neighbor to the north, Hezbollah could act with little to no notice, one of the sources said – which is not true of Iran.
15 members of same family killed in Gaza
On the ground in Gaza, an Israeli strike killed at least 15 people from the same family in al-Zawayda, in the central part of the enclave, a spokesperson for the local civil defense said Saturday. Nine children were among the dead.
CNN video on site shows people searching the rubble and pulling out the body of a child in the morning.
When asked by CNN to comment on the incident, the Israeli military said “reports that civilians were injured as a result of the strike is under review.”
In a later statement released on Saturday, the IDF said it killed several militants in central Gaza, including one who launched rockets toward Israeli troops.
Fighting in Gaza has reduced much of the territory to rubble and displaced almost the entire population.
Israel issued new evacuation orders in central Gaza on Saturday, the ninth across Gaza in August alone. The UN has warned such orders severely impact the local population’s access to essential services and shelter.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike in the West Bank town of Jenin on Saturday killed two commanders of the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. The Qassam Brigades said the strike had targeted a vehicle carrying the two men, whom it said had planned and executed multiple attacks, including a gunfire attack in the Jordan Valley in the West Bank on August 11 that killed a 23-year-old man. Earlier on Saturday, the IDF confirmed hitting the vehicle, identifying the men killed as “the terrorist Ahmed Abu Arrah from Aqabah” and “the terrorist Raafat Dawasi from Silat al-Harithiya.”
‘Cautious optimism’ on truce talks: Israel
On Friday hostage and truce talks ended and are due to resume next week. International mediators presented a new proposal intended to close the remaining gaps of disagreement between Israel and Gaza.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said Saturday its negotiating team is still cautiously optimistic about reaching a ceasefire-hostage deal.
“The team expressed cautious optimism to the prime minister regarding the possibility of moving forward with the deal, based on the latest American proposal (which is based on the May 27 outline) – and includes elements acceptable to Israel,” the office said in a statement.
“There is hope that the heavy pressure on Hamas from the United States and the mediators will lead to the removal of its opposition to the American proposal, and will allow a breakthrough in negotiations,” the statement said.
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CNN’s Alex Marquardt and Katie Bo Lillis contributed reporting.
