The Lebanese Health Ministry says three people have been killed in an Israeli attack

Smoke rises near the Israel-Lebanon border after Hezbollah fired projectiles at Israel from Lebanon, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in northern Israel, September 12, 2024. | Photo credit: Reuters

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said a child was among three people killed in an Israeli attack in the south of the country on Thursday (September 12, 2024), amid ongoing gun battles between Israel and Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group has exchanged cross-border fire with Israeli forces almost daily since the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, sparking war in the Gaza Strip.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said an “Israeli enemy attack” hit the village of Kfarjouz near Nabatieh, about 10 kilometers from the border with Israel.

The attack killed “three people, including a child, and injured three others,” the ministry said, without providing further details.

A source close to Hezbollah confirmed that one of the dead was “a fighter in Hezbollah” and the two others were “civilians”.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the strike “targeted two motorcycles on the Nabatieh-Kfarjouz road”, adding that a passing car was also hit.

In a statement posted on Telegram early Friday, Hezbollah said it had fired a barrage of Katyusha rockets at Israel’s Northern Command “in response to the attack and killing carried out” in Kfarjouz.

The Israeli military said shortly afterwards that “approximately twenty projectiles were identified entering Israeli territory from Lebanon” around Safed, where the Northern Command is based.

“Most were successfully intercepted, the rest fell in open areas,” the army said in a statement, adding that no injuries had been reported but that teams were working to “extinguish the fire that broke out due to a trap in the area”.

Earlier Thursday, Hezbollah said it had carried out a number of attacks on military positions in northern Israel, some using drones.

The Israeli military said at the time that “approximately 15 projectiles” were identified crossing from Lebanon, some of which were intercepted and no casualties were reported.

Cross-border violence has killed about 622 people in Lebanon since early October, mostly fighters but also at least 142 civilians, according to a UN report. AFP count.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, authorities have announced the deaths of at least 24 soldiers and 26 civilians.