ISRAELI strikes in Lebanon have killed at least 32 people despite a ceasefire being in place, with the violence threatening to derail talks between the United States and Iran aimed at cementing a fragile peace process.
Follow-up talks between Iran and the US on the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed this week will be held in Burgenstock, Switzerland, on Sunday, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said on Saturday. US and Iranian representatives will participate, along with mediators from Pakistan and Qatar, it added.
But ongoing Israeli air raids and drone attacks in southern Lebanon, which continued even after a renewed ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah began on Friday, have complicated the planned talks. Iran views a ceasefire in Lebanon as essential to the diplomatic process and that it could “make or break” the US-Iran talks.
Israeli strikes killed 16 people and wounded 12 in Nabatieh district in the country’s south on Saturday, Lebanon’s civil defence agency said.
A Lebanese soldier was killed in an Israeli attack on the village of Kfar Reman, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) said.
NNA reported Israeli attacks in Tyre District, with an Israeli strike on the village of Barish killing four members of the same family – a father, a mother and their two children. Another Israeli raid hit a house in Sohmor in the western Bekaa while a family was inside, killing four people and injuring one, NNA said.
An Israeli attack on Qanarit in Sidon district killed at least seven people and wounded 13, said Lebanon’s Health Emergency Operations Centre.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health said that 83 people were killed and 141 wounded in Israeli attacks on Friday, just after the renewed ceasefire was announced. Most of the casualties were in southern Lebanon, with others in the country’s east.
Reporting from Tyre in Lebanon on Saturday, Al Jazeera’s Heidi Pett said there had been more than 100 Israeli air strikes on southern Lebanon since midnight.
“It’s been a devastating day here; there are civilians among those killed and wounded,” she said.
“There have been soldiers from the Lebanese army who have been killed today, one of them in a targeted attack on his motorbike and that has spurred quite a critical response from the Lebanese army, who usually stay out of politics,” Pett added.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry added on Saturday that Israeli attacks since March 2 have killed at least 4,057 people and wounded 12,121 others.
“It does point to the shaky nature of this ceasefire, and also how the whole negotiating process does seem to be reliant upon Lebanon and what happens here in the coming days and weeks,” reported Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride from Beirut.
Article 1 of the MOU signed between the US and Iran explicitly states that ending the war in Lebanon is an integral part of the broader ceasefire arrangement across all fronts.
The Lebanese army said in a statement on Saturday that the continuation of Israeli attacks on Lebanon aimed to obstruct efforts to restore stability in the country.
Najat Aoun Saliba, a Lebanese member of parliament, told Al Jazeera that people in Lebanon are tired and have had enough of the killing and destruction.
“It’s also costing us [the government] a lot of money and a lot of pain,” she said, adding that both Israel and Hezbollah have used Lebanese territory to gain leverage over the war in Iran.
Hezbollah said on Saturday that it had targeted Israeli troops that had advanced towards an area near Nabatieh overnight.
The Israeli military published a statement soon after saying Hezbollah had launched more than 50 projectiles towards soldiers operating in southern Lebanon overnight, and that the armed group was violating the ceasefire.
The Israeli army also announced that another soldier was killed in its operation in southern Lebanon, becoming the fifth to have died since the US-Iran deal was reached.