Lebanon state media says Israeli strikes kill 9 in south

Lebanese state media reported today (25 March) that Israeli strikes killed at least six people in a town and a Palestinian refugee camp in the southern Sidon area, and three more in another town.

Israel has stepped up its campaign against Tehran-backed militant group Hezbollah, whose rocket attacks on 2 March pulled Lebanon into the regional war, triggered by US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

Citing the health ministry, Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) said four people were killed in an "Israeli enemy raid" on the town of Adloun, and another two in a strike on an apartment in the Mieh Mieh refugee camp that left four wounded.

In another area of southern Lebanon, the NNA earlier said an Israeli raid on the town of Habboush killed at least three people and wounded 18 others.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military did not immediately comment on the reported strikes.

In a statement, the military said ground troops in southern Lebanon "dismantled a weapons storage facility", and the air force killed "several terrorists" who had fled the targeted site.

The statement also said that "troops dismantled Hezbollah command centres in which numerous weapons were located", without specifying where.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, said its fighters had launched numerous attacks targeting Israeli troops in south Lebanon and inside Israel, where there were no reports of casualties.

A military spokesman earlier warned of an imminent attack on Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold that has been targeted multiple times during the war.

The spokesman, Avichay Adraee, said in a statement posted online that Israeli forces were targeting Hezbollah's "military infrastructure... throughout the suburb with increasing force".

"For your safety, you must evacuate immediately," Adraee told residents.

Israel, which occupied southern Lebanon for nearly two decades until 2000, has said its military would take control of the border area up to the Litani river, around 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the frontier.

The Israeli campaign has killed at least 1,072 people in Lebanon, with more than one million people displaced, according to Lebanese authorities.

In northern Israel, where repeated air raid sirens have sent residents to shelters, a woman was killed yesterday (24 March) following rocket fire from Lebanon, Israeli authorities said.