An Israeli air strike on southern Lebanon on Friday killed one person, the Lebanese health ministry said, the latest attack despite a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.
In a statement, the health ministry said that an “Israeli enemy” drone strike on a car near al-Numairiya, Nabatiyeh district, killed one person and wounded five others.
There were no immediate comments from the Israeli military on the incident.
Israel has continued to carry out targeted strikes on Hezbollah operatives and infrastructure since it signed a ceasefire with Lebanon in late November, alleging violations of the truce agreement.
According to the IDF, over 180 Hezbollah operatives have been killed in that time.
On Thursday, the IDF said it had killed the commander of Hezbollah’s artillery forces in the coastal sector of southern Lebanon.
Muhammad Jamal Murad, the Hezbollah commander, was killed in the Mansouri area, south of Tyre.
During the war, the IDF said Murad was responsible for numerous rocket attacks on Israel, and in recent months was involved in efforts to restore Hezbollah’s artillery capabilities in the coastal sector.
“Murad’s activity posed a threat to the State of Israel and constituted a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon,� the IDF added.
The IDF also said it it struck a Hezbollah military compound in southern Lebanon’s Yohmor overnight Thursday.
“The headquarters operated under the guise of a civilian structure, with the Hezbollah terror organization exploiting the civilian population to advance terror activities against the State of Israel,� the military said in a statement, adding that this “constitutes a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.�
The IDF said it took measures to mitigate civilian harm in the strike.
The ceasefire agreement brought to an end more than a year of fighting with the Iran-backed Hezbollah, including two months of open war in southern Lebanon late last year.
Hezbollah began attacking military outposts and communities in northern Israel unprovoked on October 8, 2023, in a show of support for fellow Iranian terror proxy Hamas in Gaza after it led invasion and onslaught in southern Israel a day earlier.
Under the terms of the ceasefire, Hezbollah was required to withdraw its fighters north of the Litani River and dismantle all military infrastructure in southern Lebanon. Israel was to withdraw from Lebanon, while maintaining the right to strike threats to its security.
Since then, the Lebanese state has been working methodically to dismantle the terror group’s infrastructure in the south of the country, and is estimated to have seized the majority of the terror group’s weapons stockpile in the same area.
On Friday, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said that while he was open to peaceful relations with Israel, normalization of ties was “not currently part of Lebanese foreign policy”.