Symbolic imageIsraeli strikes kill 11 in south Lebanon, deadliest since June truce
Israeli air strikes on two villages in southern Lebanon killed at least 11 people, including three children, on Saturday, the deadliest day since the truce with Hezbollah took effect in June.
Israeli warplanes flattened a house on the edge of Ansar early on Saturday, 15 August, killing seven people, three of them children. A strike hours later on a home in Deir al-Zahrani killed two, the Guardian says, or four, according to Lebanon's health ministry. Neither village lies inside the zone Israeli forces occupy.
Israel's account of the strike
The Israeli military said Hezbollah wounded three of its soldiers with an explosive drone near the Ali al-Taher ridge and that it struck a Radwan Force headquarters, killing battalion commander Ali Samir Al-Haj Hassan, whose family was with him. It called Hassan a lawful target and accused Hezbollah of using civilians as human shields; Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said the dead women and children were not military targets.
Talks under strain
President Joseph Aoun called the attacks a clear message about the negotiations, whose eighth US-sponsored round is set for Rome in early September. Hezbollah vowed an appropriate response and pressed Beirut to end the humiliating talks running since April; a spokesman for Netanyahu said the strikes should make them more serious.
Other opinions
Tehran Times calls the strikes massacres and omits the drone attack the Jerusalem Post puts first.