The ceasefire agreement between Israel and a Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah is in a fragile state after the two parties continued strikes.
This comes barely 24 hours after Israel and Hezbollah agreed to renew a provisional ceasefire on Friday.
The midnight hour-mediated truce, orchestrated rapidly by the U.S., Qatar, and Iran, aims to rescue broader Middle East peace negotiations.
Despite the agreement officially taking effect at 4:00 PM local time, reports from southern Lebanon on Saturday indicate that localized cross-border friction and artillery shelling continue, highlighting the extreme volatility on the ground.
It was gathered that about two dozen people have reportedly been killed by Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon, less than 24 hours after a new ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was announced.
Local officials said 16 people had been killed in the Nabatieh district and seven in neighbouring Saida, with others injured, after Israeli warplanes, drones, and artillery targeted several areas.
A family of four – a father, a mother and their two children – was killed in the town of Barish in southern Lebanon, state media reported.
The Israeli military said it had struck “dozens” of Hezbollah targets after the group fired over 50 projectiles at Israeli forces in the region.
The U.S government has criticised Israel’s ongoing operations in Lebanon, which was drawn into the US-Iran war when Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel in retaliation for a strike that killed Iran’s supreme leader.
Washington also fears that the continuing tensions between Israel and Lebanon could undermine the U.S peace deal with Iran, which includes a commitment to end fighting on “all fronts” including Lebanon.
U.S envoy, Steve Witkoff, is reported to be heading to Switzerland for initial talks with Iran to help cement the agreement.
Senior Hezbollah official Hassan Fadlallah said his group had the right to respond to the continued strikes from Israel.
“What concerns us is that the enemy fully and comprehensively respects the ceasefire, and doesn’t attempt to attack our country and villages or seek to occupy any new position,” he said, as quoted in Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA).
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had “struck dozens of Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure sites and terrorists in southern Lebanon”.
The IDF said its strikes were in response to Hezbollah launching “more than 50 projectiles toward IDF soldiers in southern Lebanon”.
“These attacks constitute repeated and ongoing violations of the ceasefire agreement,” it added in the statement.
Pan-Atlantic Kompass reports that previous ceasefires between Israel and Hezbollah have still seen near-daily cross-border strikes, with both sides accusing each other of violating the agreement.
Before Friday’s ceasefire was announced, Israel said it had no intention of withdrawing its forces from Lebanon and had insisted that its conflict with Hezbollah was separate from the war on Iran.
The two countries first agreed to a ceasefire in April, but this failed to stop the fighting. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his country’s military to intensify its strikes on Hezbollah and advance deeper into Lebanon, after Hezbollah struck communities in northern Israel with drone and rocket attacks.
Ceasefire commitments have been repeatedly renewed since then, but followed by air strikes and attacks from both sides.
Netanyahu has been under domestic pressure to continue military action against Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shia Muslim political and military group in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has vowed to continue its attacks while Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon persists.
