TEHRAN – Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) launched more deadly attacks in southern Lebanon in a sharp escalation that has killed more civilians, including a family of four.
According to Lebanon’s civil defense, preliminary reports say 20 civilians were killed on Saturday, and many others were injured, suggesting the final death toll will rise. Despite the alleged ceasefire that reportedly came into effect on Friday, the Israeli regime continues to wage deadly aggression against civilians in Lebanon.
The Israeli regime’s attacks threaten an agreement between the United States and Iran. Besides the latest deadly strikes on Saturday, the occupying regime launched deadly strikes in Lebanon throughout Friday. Those strikes killed 47 people, including women and children. According to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, almost 100 others sustained injuries even though an end to the Israeli regime’s hostilities in Lebanon is the very first point of the agreement between the U.S. and Iran.
The Israeli Premier, Benjamin Netanyahu, who finds himself and his cabinet more isolated than ever, and running out of time, is keen to sabotage the only real path to peace in Lebanon.
In a post on social media, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev summed up Netanyahu’s cabinet.
“An unstable agreement easily explodes with new strikes on Lebanon or other provocations. And that’s exactly what the Netanyahu cabinet, which is sustained by war, needs. So, expecting peace is rash,” Medvedev wrote.
Since the early hours of Saturday, the IOF launched more strikes on areas in southern Lebanon and the western Bekaa Valley.
In the town of Qanarit, located in the district of Sidon, an air raid killed at least seven people, including five children.
According to Lebanon’s state news agency NNA, a father, mother, and their two children were killed when an IOF aircraft bombed a three-story residential building in the town of Basrish in the Tyre district.
IOF warplanes and drones struck the city of Nabatieh, Nabatieh al-Fawqa, Kfar Jouz, Doueir, and Kfar Tebnit in the Nabatieh District, as well as the town of Shehour in the Tyre District.
The Lebanese Civil Defense reported evacuating 47 residents and transporting 16 bodies and 12 wounded people following the attacks on the Nabatieh area.
In a statement, the Lebanese Civil Defense Directorate General said that personnel from various centers across the Nabatieh regional district had been conducting evacuation, transport, and emergency response operations since the early morning in response to the ongoing attacks targeting the area.
The Lebanese Army announced that a soldier was killed after an IOF airstrike targeted the Kfar Reman road in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, on Saturday.
The army emphasized that the continuation of these “brutal” Israeli attacks is clearly aimed at obstructing any solution that could restore stability to Lebanon.
Several Lebanese Army personnel have been killed in IOF attacks across multiple areas in the south and the Bekaa region amid continued violations of the ceasefire by the Zionist regime since April 17, 2026.
In light of these developments, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun stressed that the ceasefire represents a fundamental pillar for advancing the Lebanese-American-Israeli negotiations scheduled to take place in Washington next week.
IOF troops have also paid the price for the Israeli aggression in southern Lebanon and its attempts to expand the occupation. On Saturday, another soldier succumbed to injuries sustained during a Hezbollah operation on an IOF infantry unit on Friday that killed four soldiers and injured many others.
Netanyahu used this resistance operation as a pretext to expand the aggression in Lebanon, citing the “Hezbollah threat” to northern settlements.
In reality, Hezbollah did not target northern settlements, nor did resistance fighters target IOF barracks and bases, illegally stationed in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah waged a resistance operation that thwarted the IOF from expanding its occupation north of the Litani River in al-Taher hill.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted after the July 2006 war, called for the area between the “Blue Line” and the Litani River to be free of weapons not under the authority of the Lebanese state, in exchange for the full withdrawal of the IOF from southern Lebanon and all other Lebanese lands occupied.
The occupation regime has yet to comply with this resolution to this day. It continues to occupy Lebanese territory, in particular the Shabaa farms, the Kfarchouba hills, and Ghajar village, while violating Lebanese airspace long before escalating its aggression on March 2, 2026.
In essence, the Lebanese state and its army lack the conventional military capabilities needed to confront the Israeli occupation. This has been the central argument advanced by Hezbollah since its founding in 1982 following the Israeli invasion and subsequent occupation of Lebanon.
Hezbollah has repeatedly and publicly stated that it would be more than willing to engage in discussions with the government regarding its weapons if the Lebanese state possessed the military capability to compel Israel to withdraw from the lands.
Hezbollah has consistently emphasized that this remains the fundamental path to safeguarding Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. In a statement issued on Saturday, the Lebanese resistance movement said the Zionist regime “is once again resorting to false claims to justify its violation of the ceasefire, which it has never respected, including violations carried out from last night until today.”
Hezbollah highlighted that it has “adhered since Friday evening to the ceasefire, even after the enemy violated it from the very first moments. However, it has kept its hand on the trigger, given its awareness of the enemy’s habitual betrayal and treachery.”
The statement lashed out at the Israeli regime for “targeting, as usual, civilians to cover up its military failures.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: tehrantimes.com
