At least 12 people were killed and 24 wounded in Israeli air strikes in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley on Friday, Lebanese authorities and security sources said, as cited by news agency AFP.
Local television footage from one of the strike sites showed what appeared to be an apartment building that had been hit.
Israel said it had targeted “command centres” of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in the valley, with two security sources telling Reuters that senior Hezbollah leader Hussein Yaghi was among those killed in the strikes.
Yaghi is the son of former Hezbollah lawmaker Mohamed Yaghi, and his funeral is scheduled to take place on Saturday, Hezbollah-affiliated media reported.
The strikes were among the deadliest reported in eastern Lebanon in recent weeks. They risk testing a fragile US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and the Shi’ite Islamist group Hezbollah, already strained by recurring accusations of violations.
Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire in 2024 to end more than a year of cross-border hostilities that culminated in Israeli strikes weakening the Iran-aligned group. Since then, both sides have accused each other of violating the truce.
US and Israeli officials have urged Lebanese authorities to curb Hezbollah’s arsenal, while Lebanese leaders have warned that wider Israeli strikes could further destabilise a country already grappling with political and economic crises.
Earlier on Friday, an Israeli strike hit a Palestinian refugee camp in the port city of Sidon, killing two people, as cited by The Guardian.
The Israeli military said it had struck a “Hamas command centre” in the Ain el-Hilweh camp. Hamas acknowledged that two of its members were killed in the strike but said the claim it was a command centre was a “flimsy pretext”.
Hamas said the targeted building belonged to a joint security force composed of various Palestinian factions responsible for maintaining security in the camp.
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