Israel launches fresh strikes across southern Lebanon on Saturday, state media reports
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported fresh Israeli airstrikes, an explosion and machine-gun fire across southern Lebanon early on Saturday, as attacks continued despite US-mediated military talks earlier in October.
Israel carried out a fresh round of strikes across southern Lebanon early on Saturday, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported, with warplanes, artillery and machine-gun fire hitting a string of towns and villages in the border region. The attacks came despite a US-brokered framework agreement meant to halt hostilities and renewed diplomatic efforts to end the fighting.
According to the agency's account, carried by Anadolu Agency, Israeli warplanes struck the area between Nabatieh al-Fawqa and Kfar Tebnit in the Nabatieh district, while another airstrike hit the outskirts of Baraachit in the Bint Jbeil district. In the Marjayoun district, forces carried out an explosion in Tallousa, drones flew at low altitude over nearby towns, and machine-gun fire from the direction of Khiam targeted agricultural land in Ibl al-Saqi.
Warplanes also struck an area between Adshit al-Qusayr and Taybeh, the agency said, while in the Tyre district drones flew over the city and surrounding towns, reaching both banks of the Litani River in the Qasmiyeh area. L'Orient Today's correspondent in southern Lebanon reported a similar pattern, with strikes on Kfar Tebnit in Nabatieh, Haddatha in Bint Jbeil and a house on the outskirts of Braachit, in the Deir area.
The shelling was heavy and sustained through the morning. L'Orient Today reported that heavy artillery fire struck Tallousseh in Marjayoun, Mansouri in the Tyre district and Kfar Tebnit at around 11am, after earlier shells had targeted Wadi Zibqine, Srebbine and Tallousseh. Israeli drones were also seen over the coastal city of Saida, and heavy machine-gun fire was heard near Srebbine and in Ibl al-Saqi.
At dawn, the paper reported, Israeli aircraft bombed homes in Kfar Tebnit and destroyed a four-storey building in Braachit belonging to Mahmoud Ali Ismail. During the night, artillery fire had targeted the al-Arish area near Haddatha and Hariss in Bint Jbeil, while shells fired from Merkava tanks and gunfire struck the outskirts of Qantara, near Wadi Houjeir, and the Israeli army dropped flares over the town.
The Israeli military offered a narrower account of at least one of the incidents. After Lebanese media reported a strike in Kfar Tebnit, the Israel Defense Forces said the blast there was a controlled detonation carried out by troops as part of what it called routine operations to demolish infrastructure in the area, without providing further details, according to The Times of Israel.
Saturday's strikes followed a night of attacks on Friday evening, when, amid heavy artillery fire across several areas, the Israeli army detonated several homes in the Jableh neighbourhood of Khiam in Nabatieh, an area known for its villas, L'Orient Today reported. Al Mayadeen's correspondent likewise reported successive attacks across the region on Saturday, with warplanes striking Kfar Tebnit, the outskirts of Baraachit and Adchit al-Qusayr, and artillery shelling Nabatieh al-Fawqa, Tallousah and al-Mansouri.
The reports did not give a casualty figure for Saturday's strikes, and no official Lebanese casualty statement for the day was carried in the accounts reviewed. The absence of a figure does not mean no one was hurt; it means the toll, if any, had not been confirmed in those reports at the time of writing.
The attacks are the latest in a near-daily pattern of Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon despite the ceasefire framework. The framework provides for a gradual Israeli withdrawal from occupied Lebanese territories in exchange for the deployment of the Lebanese army and the disarmament of armed groups, according to Yeni Safak's summary of the agreement.
Diplomacy has so far failed to stop the strikes. US-sponsored military and technical talks between Lebanon and Israel held in Tampa, Florida, on 20 and 21 October ended without an announced breakthrough or a joint statement, and the attacks have continued since.
For residents of the border villages, the practical effect is a war that never fully stopped: homes demolished, farmland under fire, and drones overhead at low altitude. Each new round of strikes also tests the ceasefire framework itself, raising the question of how long an agreement can hold when one side continues to strike almost daily.
What happens next is likely to be decided less in the border villages than in the diplomatic channels that produced the framework. Unless the Tampa process, or a successor to it, produces enforceable limits on strikes, Saturday's pattern — airstrikes at dawn, artillery through the morning, demolitions at night — looks set to continue into the coming week.
