Israeli strikes kill four in southern Lebanon amid fragile ceasefire

Israeli strikes killed four people in southern Lebanon and reignited fears that the Israel-Hezbollah truce could fray further, even as both sides continued to trade fire along the border.

Lebanon’s state news agency said the dead were killed on Saturday, while the Israeli military said Hezbollah had fired two rockets into northern Israel, one of which was intercepted and caused no casualties. Israel said it responded by striking loaded rocket launchers in three locations in southern Lebanon overnight and hitting several Hezbollah fighters. Later in the day, the military said it also struck facilities used by Hezbollah’s Radwan forces, an elite unit Israel has long treated as a major threat.

The fighting did not stop there. Israel reiterated a warning for Lebanese residents not to approach the Litani River area, underscoring how the frontier remained unstable despite the ceasefire. The military also said it had identified two projectiles launched from Lebanon and later intercepted another “suspicious aerial target,” a sign that the exchange was still active and not confined to a single overnight barrage.

The violence landed just two days after the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon was extended by three weeks following White House talks, with President Donald Trump saying senior U.S. officials and representatives from both countries were involved. The extension was meant to keep diplomacy alive, but the latest strikes showed how quickly the arrangement could be tested by retaliatory attacks and competing claims over who broke the truce first.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Friday that it had documented patterns of attacks on civilians in populated areas and residential buildings in Lebanon and Israel that may amount to serious violations of international humanitarian law. The office said the latest escalation began after Hezbollah launched attacks on March 2, 2026, and said that in the first three weeks at least 1,029 people were killed, 2,786 injured and more than one million displaced in Lebanon, according to the Lebanese government.

Later reporting on Saturday said Lebanese health authorities put the toll even higher, with six killed in separate Israeli strikes in Yohmor al-Shaqeef and Safad al-Battikh in the Nabatieh governorate and 17 wounded. Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to attack Hezbollah targets “forcefully” after the latest alleged truce violations, while a Hezbollah lawmaker called the U.S.-mediated ceasefire “meaningless.” The pattern remains the same: each exchange is presented as defensive, but each one deepens the risk that the truce architecture will not hold.