Thirteen killed in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, health ministry says

A three-week extension to the ceasefire was announced Donald Trump on 23 April, who said the second meeting between the two countries "went very well" and the US would be working with Lebanon "to help it protect itself from Hezbollah". The Iran-backed group was not involved in the ceasefire agreement but had indicated it would abide if it was also respected by Israel. While the truce largely halted strikes on the capital city Beirut and its southern suburbs, fighting has persisted elsewhere in the south, with continued air raids and repeated evacuation orders. On 30 April, the US embassy in Beirut suggested a meeting between Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would give Lebanon "the chance to secure concrete guarantees on full sovereignty, territorial integrity, secure borders, humanitarian and reconstruction support, and the complete restoration of Lebanese state authority over every inch of its territory". The post on X added that this would be "guaranteed ". Neither leader has responded to the post. Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire ending a previous conflict in November 2024, after which Israel carried out near-daily attacks on targets and people it said were linked to Hezbollah. After the US and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February and killed Iran's supreme leader, Hezbollah launched rockets and drones into Israel in retaliation on 2 March. In response, Israel bombarded Lebanon with air strikes. Israeli forces re-entered southern Lebanon in early March, where they have destroyed villages and remained occupying 10km (6.2 miles) of Lebanese territory.

Since early March, 2,586 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 103 health care workers and emergency responders, according to the Lebanese health ministry. It does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Along with 17 Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon, two civilians have been killed in Israel. On Saturday morning, the IDF said it had undertaken "around 50 strikes in the last day" on southern Lebanon. It says the targets struck included headquarters from where Hezbollah operated, along with buildings used for military purposes. A previous update said the IDF intercepted two "aerial targets" before they managed to cross into Israeli territory. Middle East Israel Hezbollah Lebanon