Israeli strikes kill five in southern Lebanon amid shaky ceasefire 

At least five people have been killed in Israeli attacks on several towns in southern Lebanon, the country’s Health Ministry has said, amid a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

“An Israeli enemy drone strike on the town of Ainata killed one person and wounded another,” the ministry said.

An “Israeli strike on the town of Bint Jbeil killed three people,” while a third “on Beit Lif killed one person”, it added.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the attacks.

Israel’s army escalated its attacks on Lebanon in late September after more than 11 months of cross-border exchanges of fire with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which began firing rockets towards Israel after the Palestinian group Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

A United States-brokered ceasefire started on November 27, but both sides have accused the other of repeated violations. Israel has launched near-daily strikes, mostly in southern Lebanon, that have killed scores of people since the deal took effect.

Under the terms of the agreement, the Lebanese army is to deploy in the south alongside United Nations peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdraws over a period of 60 days.

Hezbollah is required to withdraw its forces north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle its military infrastructure in the south.

The Lebanese army said it deployed troops around Khiam, a key town just five kilometres (three miles) from the border that witnessed heavy Israeli air strikes and fighting between Israeli soldiers and the Iran-aligned group.

The Lebanese army said “units deployed in five positions around the town of Khiam” in coordination with UN peacekeepers and “within the framework of the first phase of deployment in the area, at the same time as the Israeli enemy withdrawal”.

“The deployment will be completed in the next phase, while specialised units” will survey the town to “remove unexploded ordnance”, it added.

Earlier, UN peacekeepers entered Khiam “to inspect the road and verify the Israeli enemy army’s withdrawal”, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said.

The NNA said the peacekeepers found the body of a man “in the vicinity of his house” in the border town.

The NNA reported that ambassadors from the United States, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt held a meeting Wednesday with Lebanon’s Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally who has scheduled a parliament session in January for lawmakers to elect a president.

Crisis-hit Lebanon has been without a head of state for more than two years amid deadlock between pro- and anti-Hezbollah blocs in Parliament.

Envoys from the five countries who met Berri have been working for months to facilitate the process.

Separately, US Army General Erik Kurilla, who leads US Central Command, met with the head of the Lebanese army General Joseph Aoun to discuss ongoing American support for the implementation of the ceasefire agreement.