Israel carried out airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, southern Lebanon and southern Syria on Monday, March 17, killing at least 10 people, including a child, according to local authorities. The Israeli military said it was targeting militants plotting attacks.
The airstrikes were the latest in what have been frequent and often deadly attacks by Israeli forces during the fragile ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon. Israel has blocked all food, medicine, fuel and other supplies from entering Gaza the past two weeks, demanding Hamas accept changes in the two sides’ ceasefire deal.
In Syria, Israel seized a zone in the south after the fall of longtime autocrat Bashar Assad in December. Israel says it is a preemptive security measure against the former Islamist insurgents who now run Syria, though their transitional government has not expressed threats against Israel.
The strikes hit a residential area in the southern Syrian city of Daraa, killing three people and wounding 19 others, including four children, a woman and three civil defense volunteers, the Syrian civil defense agency said. It said two ambulances were damaged. Other strikes hit military positions near the city.
The Israeli military said it was targeting military command centers and sites in southern Syria that contained weapons and vehicles belonging to Assad’s forces. It said the materials’ presence posed a threat to Israel.
In central Gaza, two strikes hit around the urban refugee camp of Bureij. One struck a school serving as a shelter for displaced Palestinians, killing a 52-year-old man and his 16-year-old nephew, according to officials at nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the casualties were taken. The Israeli military said it struck militants planting explosives.
An earlier strike killed three men in Bureij. The Israeli military said the men were trying to plant an explosive device in the ground near Israeli troops. Gaza’s Hamas-led government said the men were collecting firewood.
In Lebanon, Israel said it struck two members of the Hezbollah militant group in the southern Lebanese town of Yohmor, who it said were “observation operatives.” Lebanon’s state news agency reported two people killed in the strike and two wounded.
The military later said it carried out further strikes on Hezbollah sites in Lebanon, without specifying where. A US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect in late November ending the 14-month war between the two sides, and each side has repeatedly accused the other of violating the deal.
Since the ceasefire in Gaza began in mid-January, Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians who the military says approached its troops or entered unauthorized areas.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese health ministry on Monday said at least seven people were killed and 52 wounded in clashes on the border with Syria that erupted the previous night.
Clashes broke out late Sunday at the Syrian-Lebanese border, with the new authorities in Damascus accusing the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah of abducting three soldiers into Lebanon and killing them.
A Lebanese security source told AFP that Syrian forces fired shells into Lebanon after the three security personnel were killed in the Lebanese village of Qasr by local gunmen involved in smuggling.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) said the border clashes resumed on Monday following fresh Syrian shelling.
The health ministry's emergency unit said that the "developments over the last two days on the Lebanese-Syrian border led to the death of seven citizens and the injury of 52 others". It added that six people were killed on Monday, while a 15-year-old boy died on Sunday.
Earlier Monday Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said that his country's forces would respond to incoming fire from neighbouring Syria.
"What is happening on the eastern and northeastern borders cannot continue," Aoun said in a post on X. "I have directed the Lebanese army to respond to the source of the fire."
The army announced that its units had "responded to the sources of fire with appropriate weapons" after the renewed shelling from Syrian territory, NNA reported.
It added that its units "are working to strengthen their defensive positions to stop attacks on Lebanese territory".
In a call late on Monday, Lebanese Defense Minister Michel Mnassa and his Syrian counterpart Marhaf Abu Qasra agreed to "implement a ceasefire" and prevent further escalation, the Lebanese defence ministry said.
The army said earlier that it had undertaken "exceptional security measures and intensive communications" since Sunday night that had led to the return of the three Syrian soldiers' bodies to authorities there.
Lebanese Information Minister Paul Morcos said one child had been killed and six other people wounded by the Syrian shelling, adding that many civilians had also been displaced in the border area.
A source in Syria's defense ministry later told state news agency SANA that forces had launched a security sweep of the border areas.
"Our aim with our actions on the border is to expel Hezbollah militias from the Syrian villages and areas they use as temporary bases for smuggling and drug trafficking operations," the source said.
Earlier Monday, Syrian authorities in Homs province reported that a photographer and a journalist were wounded along the border, according to SANA. They accused Hezbollah of "targeting them with a guided missile".
Hezbollah was a key backer of Syria's former president Bashar al-Assad before he was toppled in a lightning offensive by Islamist-led rebels in December.
Syria's new authorities announced last month the launch of a security campaign in the border province of Homs aimed at shutting down routes used for arms and goods smuggling.