Aug 15 (Reuters) – Seven people were killed in an Israeli dawn air strike in southern Lebanon on Saturday, Lebanon’s state news agency said.
Three others were injured when Israeli planes struck a house in the southern village of Ansar, Lebanon’s National News Agency said.
The strike is one of the deadliest attacks on Lebanon in the weeks since it agreed to a U.S.-mediated peace framework with Israel. The terms leave Israeli troops inside occupied southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed and the Lebanese army takes control, terms the Iran-backed militia has rejected as surrender.
“The framework agreement…is an Israeli order written in Israeli ink that the Lebanese authorities have signed onto,” Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said during a speech on Friday.
In a statement, the Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah infrastructure overnight in what it described as a security zone in south Lebanon in response to actions against its soldiers.
Israel’s military seized a swath of south Lebanon during a war with Hezbollah earlier this year, which was triggered when the group fired at Israel two days into the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Israel has said it will keep its forces there to shield northern Israel from further attacks.
During a visit to south Lebanon on Thursday, defence minister Israel Katz said Israel would not withdraw from the regions it controls until Hezbollah is disarmed. A U.S. State Department official said that a permanent Israeli military presence in the area was not consistent with commitments set out in the deal with Lebanon’s government.
At least 4,300 people have been killed in Lebanon in the latest round of hostilities since March 2.
(Reporting by Eman Abouhassira, Emily Rose, and Nazih Osseiran; Writing by Nazih Osseiran; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
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