An Israeli drone strike killed five people, including three children, in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil on Sunday, Lebanon‘s health ministry said.
Israel has frequently targeted what it calls Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon despite a U.S.-brokered truce between Lebanon and Israel which took effect in November following more than a year of conflict sparked by war in Gaza.
Lebanon‘s state news agency said the strike hit a motorbike and a vehicle, wounding two others.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said in a statement that a father and his three children were among the dead, with the mother wounded. He said they held U.S. citizenship.
“While the situation is fluid, so far, indications are that the five killed were not U.S. citizens. In fact, one had an unused immigrant visa petition in the past,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said.
The Israeli military said it killed a Hezbollah member in the strike but that “several uninvolved civilians were killed.”
“The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible. The incident is under review,” it said in a statement.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, in a post on X, described the attack as a “blatant crime against civilians and a message of intimidation aimed at our people returning to their villages in the south.”
Lebanon is under pressure from the United States, Saudi Arabia and Hezbollah’s domestic rivals to disarm the Iranian-backed group.
Hezbollah has said it would be a serious misstep even to discuss disarmament while Israel is continuing airstrikes on Lebanon and occupying swaths of territory in its south.
