Four US citizens, including three youngsters, had been amongst 5 folks killed Sunday by an Israeli air strike on southern Lebanon, based on the Lebanese government.
Israel’s army stated it had “struck and eliminated” a Hezbollah operator in the southern city of Bint Jbeil, however acknowledged that “several uninvolved civilians” had been additionally killed in the strike.
“The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible. The incident is under review,” it stated in an announcement.
Among these killed had been a father and three of his youngsters, who had been US citizens, based on Lebanon’s Speaker of the Parliament, Nabih Berri, in an announcement mourning their deaths.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Raji stated the mom of the American household was injured in the Israeli assault and is in a essential situation.
NCS has approached the US State Department for remark.
Lebanese state-run NNA information reported {that a} drone had fired two missiles at a motorbike and a Mercedes automobile. In the automobile, the daddy and his youngsters had been killed. The motorcyclist, the obvious goal of the strike, was additionally killed.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam described the assault as a “massacre” towards civilians, including that the Israeli strike constituted a “message of intimidation targeting our people returning to their villages in the south.”
He urged the worldwide group to sentence Israel “in the strongest terms for its repeated violations of international resolutions and international law.”
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) stated it was “shocked and outraged by the killing of three children from the same family in an airstrike in South Lebanon,” in a publish on X on Sunday.
“Attacks on children are unconscionable,” UNICEF added.
“No child should ever pay the price of conflict with their life. Hostilities must cease immediately to ensure the protection of every child,” it stated.
Israel has continued to hold out strikes in Lebanon regardless of the US-brokered ceasefire settlement between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in November final yr.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun, who’s in New York to attend the UN General Assembly, stated Israel is “persisting in its continuous violations of international resolutions, foremost among them the ceasefire agreement,” in response to the assault.
“From New York, we appeal to the international community, whose leaders are present in the halls of the United Nations, to make every effort to put an end to the violations of international resolutions,” Aoun stated in an announcement on Sunday. “There can be no peace over the blood of our children,” he added.
Sunday’s assault comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s earlier remarks in a cupboard assembly concerning Israel’s “victories in Lebanon against Hezbollah” which have allowed for peace talks with its northern neighbor, Syria.
NCS’s Caitlin Danaher contributed to this report.