5 children killed in Israeli strike in southern Lebanon

By Wassim Saifuldine

BEIRUT (AA) - Five children were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Sidon in southern Lebanon, according to Lebanese media on Monday.

Lebanon’s state news agency NNA said the deaths occurred in the town of Charqiyeh in eastern Sidon late Sunday.

A Lebanese youth movement in the town, the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts, confirmed that the five were group members and lost their lives in the Israeli attack.

Since Sept. 23, Israel has launched massive airstrikes against what it calls Hezbollah targets across Lebanon, killing more than 900 people and injuring over 2,700 others, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Several Hezbollah commanders were killed in the assault, including its leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated in an airstrike in Beirut on Friday.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said early Thursday that Tel Aviv will only accept a cease-fire in Lebanon when Hezbollah is pushed away from the border to the north of the Litani River and disarmed.

Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the start of Israel's war on Gaza, which has killed nearly 41,600 people, mostly women and children, following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7 last year.

The international community has warned that Israeli attacks in Lebanon could escalate the Gaza conflict into a wider regional war.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul