Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon kill 19, including children and women, officials say

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - BEIRUT — Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon on Tuesday killed at least 19 people, including four women and three children, as the United Nations warned that the hostilities were driving up casualties, forcing people to flee and deepening the humanitarian crisis despite the US-brokered ceasefire.
Israel did not comment on the reports of casualties in Lebanon.
The Israel-Hezbollah latest fighting began on March 2 with the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group firing rockets at Israel, two days after the United States and Israel attacked Iran.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said airstrikes were reported in southern Lebanon and other parts of the country on a daily basis.
Since the escalation on March 2 following the US-Israeli war on Iran, at least 3,020 people have been killed and more than 9,200 others injured. Some 95,000 people have fled as a result of the repeated Israeli displacement orders issued since the weekend, OCHA said.
The office said there were several attacks on health care facilities.
The World Health Organization said that since March 2,169 attacks on health care resulted in 116 deaths and 263 injuries, including 23 attacks and 18 deaths since the ceasefire was first announced, further undermining access to life-saving services.
Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said Tuesday that the UN peacekeeping operation in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, reported 206 firing incidents originating from Israel Defense Forces (IDF) positions and seven presumed to be from Hezbollah as of Tuesday. They also detected five airstrikes in the UNIFIL area of operations.
In Beirut, the government said a single strike on the village of Deir Qanoun al Nahr in the coastal Tyre province killed 10 people, including three children and three women. Three were wounded, including a child.
The ministry provided no further details about the strike but state-run National News Agency said it destroyed a house, leaving several people under the rubble. Their bodies were pulled out later in the day.
According to the ministry, another airstrike — this one on the southern city of Nabatieh — killed four people and wounded 10 others, including two women. A third strike in the nearby village of Kfar Sir killed five people, including one woman.
More than a million people have been displaced in Lebanon by the fighting, with some sheltering in tents along roads and the Mediterranean Sea in Beirut.
Israel, meanwhile, has struggled to halt frequent Hezbollah drone attacks targeting its troops on Lebanese soil and northern Israeli border towns.
Israel’s military said one of its soldiers was killed on Tuesday in battle in southern Lebanon, raising the Israeli troops’ death toll to 21 since the latest conflict started.