A couple and their son were killed on Tuesday in an Israeli attack on a house in Houla, a town in southern Lebanon on the border with Israel. Hezbollah responded with attacks on civilian targets in the north of the country.
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“The three civilians, Hassan Hussein, his wife Rouwaïda Moustafa and their 25-year-old son Ali Hussein, were killed in the enemy attack on a three-story house in Houla,” the National Security Agency said. According to ANI, search operations are continuing among the rubble.
Since the war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7 in Gaza, Lebanon's Hezbollah has attacked Israeli military positions on the border almost daily in support of its Palestinian ally.
Israel is responding with attacks on Hezbollah positions and targeted operations against leaders of the Islamist group.
Shortly after Tuesday's deadly attack, Hezbollah said it fired “dozens of rockets” in the evening at Kibbutz Kfar Blum, located six kilometers from the nearest border point, and attacked “a building” in the town of Kyriat.
The Lebanese formation said it acted “in response to Israeli attacks on villages in the south and the homes of civilians,” particularly the attack that killed three members of the same family in Houla.
Hezbollah also claimed several attacks on Israeli military positions on the border on Tuesday.
“All our weapons”
According to the Israeli army, a foreign farm worker was killed on the Israeli side by a rocket fired from Lebanon on Monday, and three Hezbollah rescue workers were killed in an Israeli attack in southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese organization.
American envoy Amos Hochstein said from Beirut on Monday that a diplomatic solution was “the only way out” to end cross-border clashes between Israel and Lebanon.
A possible ceasefire in Gaza will not “automatically” mean an end to the violence on the Lebanese front, he warned before his trip to Israel.
Hezbollah reiterates that it will only stop its attacks on Israel with a ceasefire in Gaza.
But Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant recently warned that a possible ceasefire in Gaza would not undermine Israel's “goal” of driving Hezbollah from its northern border through force or diplomacy.
“We don't want war, but we are ready to face it,” Hezbollah parliamentary bloc leader Mohamed Raad said on Tuesday, quoted by ANI.
“We did not use all our weapons, including the weapons of open conflict. We have not used our entire arsenal and the enemy knows it,” he stressed.
At least 302 people have been killed in Lebanon since October 7, most by Hezbollah fighters and allied groups, and at least 51 civilians, according to an AFP count.
On the Israeli side, ten soldiers and seven civilians were killed.