Israeli Drone Attacks Kill At Least 15 People On Lebanon’s Ziyaahi Expressway

Israeli drone attacks across Lebanon killed at least 15 people, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency, including eight people—two of them children—killed in three strikes on a key highway linking Beirut to southern Lebanon.

The attacks hit vehicles on the Ziyaahi Expressway about 20 kilometers south of Beirut, and a photograph of the bombed cars shared by Lebanon’s National News Agency showed the vehicles “severely damaged, their exteriors charred and torn apart.”

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Tyre in southern Lebanon, said the “conflict is only escalating,” describing a toll on civilians in areas affected by the strikes.

Lebanon and Israel are expected to hold a new round of direct negotiations in Washington on Thursday, brokered by the United States, while Hezbollah says it opposes the talks in the US.

The Israeli military also issued forced displacement orders for residents of Meiss el-Jabal, Yanouh, Burj Shemali, Hula, Debl and Aabbasiyyeh, warning it would soon act against the six villages “forcefully” and telling residents to move at least 1,000 metres away to “open areas.”

Khodr said that after the new round of forced displacement orders—happening almost daily in the past week—one of the few remaining hospitals in the Tyre area was inside the displacement zone.

She said, “There are only three left in the whole district of Tyre, and there are still people who live here. At least 100,000 people still live here,” adding that injured people were unable to reach care because the road to the hospitals was long.

Al Jazeera

The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health reported that on Tuesday, 13 people were killed in attacks on towns in the south, including two Lebanese Civil Defence paramedics, Hussein Jaber and Ahmad Noura.

The ministry reported on Wednesday that at least 512 people had been killed during the truce, bringing the total death toll since the Israeli invasion and bombardment began on March 2 to 2,896.

Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto said from Tyre that “there is a growing humanitarian crisis, with over a million people displaced,” as the fighting continued around communities in southern Lebanon.

While the immediate drone strikes and displacement orders unfolded, Al Jazeera reported that Lebanon and Israel were expected to hold a new round of direct negotiations in Washington on Thursday, brokered by the United States.

Hezbollah, which has been launching attacks on northern Israel and on Israeli troops who have entered and occupied a section of southern Lebanon, says it opposes the negotiations in the US, according to Al Jazeera.

In a separate account of the same broader period, Anadolu Ajansı said that on March 2 Israel broadened its aggression against Lebanon, leaving 2,679 dead, 8,229 injured, and more than 1.6 million displaced.

Anadolu Ajansı also said a 10-day ceasefire between Hezbollah and Tel Aviv began on April 17 and was extended to May 17, while Israel continued to violate it daily through bombardments.

In the BBC’s account of another Israeli strike in Beirut, it described an explosion around 1:30 a.m. in the Raouche neighborhood after Israel’s strike on the four-star Ramada Plaza hotel, with the Lebanese Ministry of Health initially saying four people were killed and ten injured.