(Beirut) A couple and their son were killed Tuesday by an Israeli strike targeting a house in Houla, a town in southern Lebanon bordering Israel, the official Lebanese agency ANI said.
“The three civilians, Hassan Hussein, his wife, Rouwaïda Moustafa and their 25-year-old son, Ali Hussein, were killed in the enemy raid which targeted a three-story house in Houla,” said the National Security Agency. information. Search operations under the rubble continue, according to ANI.
Since the start of the war on October 7 in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah has targeted Israeli military positions on the border almost daily, in support of its Palestinian ally.
Israel responds by carrying out strikes against Hezbollah positions and targeted operations against leaders of the Islamist group.
Shortly before the raid on Houla, Hezbollah said it had targeted the Israeli town of Kyriat Shmona, near the border, with “appropriate weapons”, “in response to Israeli attacks on civilian homes, including the attack on the town of Bint Jbeil”.
Hezbollah also claimed several attacks against Israeli military positions on the border on Tuesday.
ANI reported Monday evening Israeli air raids targeting Bint Jbeil without reporting any casualties.
“All our weapons”
On Monday, a foreign agricultural worker was killed on the Israeli side by a missile fired from Lebanon according to the Israeli army, and three rescue workers affiliated with Hezbollah died in southern Lebanon in an Israeli raid, according to the Lebanese outfit.
American envoy Amos Hochstein said Monday from Beirut that a diplomatic solution was “the only way out” to put an end to cross-border clashes between Israel and Lebanon.
A possible ceasefire in Gaza “will not mean an end to violence on the Lebanese front,” he warned before going to Israel.
Hezbollah repeats that it will stop its attacks against Israel if the war against Hamas ends.
But Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant recently warned that a possible truce in Gaza would not undermine Israel’s “objective” of pushing Hezbollah from its northern border, by force or diplomacy.
“We do not want war, but we are ready to face it,” declared Tuesday the head of the Hezbollah parliamentary bloc, Mohamed Raad, quoted by ANI.
“We did not use all our weapons or the weapons of open conflict. We have not deployed all of our arsenal, and the enemy knows it,” he insisted.
At least 302 people, most of Hezbollah fighters and allied groups and at least 51 civilians, have been killed in Lebanon since October 7, according to an AFP count.
On the Israeli side, ten soldiers and seven civilians died.