Israel has continued carrying out drone strikes across southern Lebanon, with strikes Wednesday evening killing one person in a car in Hadatha and wounding two others after striking a motorcycle in Zibqin.
Thursday morning saw the strikes continue, with another attack on another motorcycle in Aitaroun wounding two more civilians. The motorcycle appears to have been parked near a residential building in the town when multiple missiles were fired at it.
Israeli ground troops also crossed the border at Wadi Hounin, raiding multiple homes. There was no apparent pretext for these raids, and the IDF has yet to issue any statement about what they were doing or why. A drone also attacked Yaroun, destroying a construction vehicle.
Aftermath of an Israeli drone strike on Aitaroun | Image from Lebanese media
Israel has been attacking southern Lebanon on a near daily basis since the ceasefire went into effect, and while ground raids are more unusual they’re not unheard of. In general drone strikes target active vehicles that didn’t get destroyed during the 2024 invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon, and the IDF tends to present anyone killed as a Hezbollah leader, whether it’s a lone courier on a motorcycle or a government worker helping clear debris from a farmer’s field on a bulldozer.
Israeli Army Chief Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir bragged of the number of strikes they’ve carried out and the number killed in those strikes estimating around 600 Israeli airstrikes against Lebanon, and claiming to have killed “over 240 terrorists.”
Lebanon has documented several thousand Israeli ceasefire violations, though only a fraction of those are drone strikes. The estimate is around 230 killed in those strikes, and most were never conclusively identified, though Gen. Zamir clearly feels comfortable both increasing the number and claiming them all to by “terrorists.”
