One killed in Israeli attack on Lebanon despite ceasefire

Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health and state media said Israeli forces carried out several new drone and artillery strikes in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, putting further strain on a tenuous 6-day-old ceasefire with Hezbollah.

“An Israeli enemy drone strike on the town of Shebaa killed one person,” a Health Ministry statement said.

The state-run National News Agency (NNA) described the man who was killed as a “shepherd”.

The new attacks come as Israeli officials threatened to expand attacks on Lebanon if the ceasefire with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah collapses.

Netanyahu promised to keep striking “with an iron fist” against perceived violations of the truce.

“We are enforcing this ceasefire with an iron fist,” he said before a cabinet meeting in the northern border city of Nahariya.

“We are currently in a ceasefire, I note, a ceasefire, not the end of the war,” he added.

Earlier, his defence minister warned that if the ceasefire collapses, Israel will target not just Hezbollah but the Lebanese state – an expansion of Israel’s campaign.

“If we return to war we will act strongly, we will go deeper, and the most important thing they need to know: that there will be no longer be an exemption for the state of Lebanon,” Defence Minister Israel Katz stated.

“If until now we separated the state of Lebanon from Hezbollah … it will no longer be [like this],” he said during a visit to the northern border area.

The US- and French-brokered ceasefire, which halted more than 13 months of fighting, has been rattled by near-daily Israeli attacks.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, Hezbollah is supposed to withdraw its fighters, weapons and infrastructure from a broad swath of the south by the end of the initial 60-day phase, pulling them north of the Litani River. Israeli troops are also to withdraw to their side of the border.

Lebanese officials have accused Israel of violating the ceasefire dozens of times with strikes, overflights of drones and demolitions of homes.

At least 11 people were killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon on Monday, according to official figures.

Hezbollah announced it fired a volley of projectiles as a warning over what it said were previous Israeli ceasefire violations.