3 Lebanese soldiers injured in Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon

By Abdulsalam Fayez

BEIRUT (AA) – Three Lebanese soldiers were injured in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon on Sunday, the state news agency NNA reported.

The attack targeted a military vehicle on a road leading to the border town of Burj al-Muluk, the broadcaster said.

On Friday, two soldiers were killed and three others wounded in an Israeli strike on a military center in the town of Kafra.

“This ongoing Israeli aggression against Lebanon has not spared brave soldiers, who are performing their national duty to protect the land and defend the people,” caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said in a statement.

He called on the international community “to break its silence on Israel's actions and demand a global moral stand to put an end to this aggression.”

At least eight Lebanese soldiers have been killed in Israeli attacks since the outbreak of cross-border clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces on Oct. 8, 2023, according to Lebanese figures.

Israel has mounted massive airstrikes across Lebanon against what it claims are Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23, killing at least 1,437 people, injuring over 4,123 others, and displacing more than 1.34 million people.

The aerial campaign is an escalation from a year of cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of its offensive on the Gaza Strip, in which Israel has killed more than 42,200 people, most of them women and children, since a Hamas attack last year.

Despite international warnings that the Mideast was on the brink of a regional war amid Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, it expanded the conflict on Oct. 1 by launching an incursion into southern Lebanon.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala