BEIRUT: Lebanon's Health Ministry said Thursday that Israeli strikes in the south had killed one person and wounded seven, while the Israeli military said it had targeted Hezbollah and its allies.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, however, insisted Israel's strikes targeted “civilian facilities,” condemning what he said was a breach of a ceasefire negotiated last year.
“The repeated Israeli aggression comes as part of a systematic policy aimed at destroying productive infrastructure, hindering economic recovery, and undermining national stability under false security pretexts,” Aoun said.
Israel has repeatedly bombed Lebanon despite a November ceasefire, which followed more than a year of hostilities with the Iran-backed militant group that culminated in two months of open war.
The Lebanese Health Ministry, which earlier said six people had been wounded, said one person was killed in a strike in the eastern town of Shmistar.
One person was wounded in Bnaafoul, in the Saida district, and six in Ansar, in the Nabatieh district, it added.
An Israeli army statement said it had “struck Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure ... in the Mazraat Sinai area in southern Lebanon.”
It also said it had struck facilities used by Green Without Borders, an NGO under U.S. sanctions that Israel considers to have “operated under a civilian cover to conceal the presence of Hezbollah in the border area with Israel.”
