Israeli Airstrikes Kill 11 in Southern Lebanon, Deadliest Toll Since June Ceasefire

Israeli warplanes killed 11 people, including three children, in southern Lebanon on Saturday, the bloodiest single day since a June ceasefire was supposed to have quieted the front between Israel and Hezbollah.

A strike on a home outside the village of Ansar flattened the building and killed seven people. Rescue crews spent the morning digging through rubble looking for survivors. Hours later, a second strike hit a house in Deir al-Zahrani, killing two more and wounding nine, leaving the street covered in smoke and debris. A drone also targeted a motorcycle in nearby Nabatieh; it remains unclear whether the rider survived. In total, 19 people were wounded across the two attacks.

Outside the 'security zone'

Both Ansar and Deir al-Zahrani sit outside the 231-square-mile buffer Israel has unilaterally declared a security zone along the border, the area it claims to occupy for defensive purposes. That the deadliest strikes since the truce landed outside that zone undercuts the premise that Israeli operations in Lebanon are confined to a narrow military perimeter.

Lebanese state media reported that a strike on the valley between Ansar and Zarariyeh was the first to reach that geographic depth since the ceasefire took hold two months ago, a marker locals and officials are watching closely for signs of further escalation. Roads out of Nabatieh and surrounding villages filled with traffic as residents fled north.

Competing accounts

Israeli military spokesperson Ella Waweya said the strikes targeted "Hezbollah infrastructure" in retaliation for fighters attacking Israeli soldiers near Ali Taher, a hill Israel says houses underground Hezbollah command centers and has shelled for months. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam rejected that framing directly, saying the seven people killed in Ansar were not military infrastructure and that the women and children killed were not military targets. He called the strikes "extremely dangerous" and said they undermined efforts to stabilize the south.

Hezbollah condemned the attacks and said they would draw a response, while also accusing the Lebanese government of serving Israel's interests by continuing to negotiate with it.

A ceasefire in name

The current round of hostilities traces back to March 2, when Hezbollah struck Israel with rockets after the killing of Iran's supreme leader. Israel's subsequent air campaign and ground invasion killed more than 4,300 people in Lebanon and left roughly 6% of the country under occupation, according to Lebanese casualty figures.

Fighting eased after a US-Iran memorandum in June and a separate US-brokered framework between Lebanon and Israel later that month, which calls for Hezbollah's disarmament, a phased Israeli withdrawal, and deployment of the Lebanese army into so-called pilot zones. But strikes and home demolitions in the south have continued intermittently. NNA reported Israeli forces detonated homes in Bint Jbeil near the border in the same period.

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem accused Lebanese authorities this week of exposing the national army to Israeli bombardment while pressuring it to implement the deal. Human Rights Watch has separately urged the UN to extend its peacekeeping mandate in Lebanon past this year, warning that international monitors remain a critical check against attacks on civilians.