Civil defense and rescue workers remove rubbles from a building that was attacked Wednesday night by an Israeli airstrike, in Nabatiyeh town, south Lebanon, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. The airstrike killed several people, Lebanon s state news agency reported. AP
"Islamic resistance fighters fired dozens of Katyusha-type rockets at Kiryat Shmona," an Israeli town near the Lebanese border, Hezbollah said in a statement.
It said the rocket fire was "a first response" to the deadly Israeli strikes on the southern cities of Nabatiyeh and Sawwaneh.
Hamas ally Hezbollah and its arch-foe Israel have been exchanging near-daily fire across the border since the Israel war on Gaza broke out on October 7.
In the bloodiest day for Lebanon since then, the Israeli military said it had killed Hezbollah commander Ali al-Debs, his deputy and another fighter in Nabatiyeh on Wednesday.
A security source in Lebanon said that along with Debs and two other Hezbollah members, the strike had killed seven civilians from the same family. The source requested anonymity, not being authorised to speak to the media.
The deaths brought to 10 the total number of civilians killed in Israeli strikes on Wednesday, the highest single-day toll since the cross-border hostilities erupted.
The Israeli army said it carried out Wednesday's strikes after a soldier was killed by rocket fire from Lebanon.
Debs had already been targeted and wounded in an Israeli drone strike in the southern city on February 8.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency identified five of the civilians killed in Nabatiyeh as Hussein Barjawi, his two daughters, his sister, and his grandson. His wife and niece were also killed, the security source said.
Emergency responders pulled a boy alive from the rubble, the NNA added, while another relative and at least six other people were taken to hospital.
The news agency said the Israeli strike was carried out by "a drone with a guided missile".
An AFP photographer said the ground and first floors of the three-storey residential building were hit, with pieces of furniture strewn among the rubble.
Also on Wednesday, the NNA said Israeli warplanes targeted a house in the southern village of Sawwaneh, killing three members of the same family -- a Syrian woman and her child, aged two, and stepchild, 13.
Short link: