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A Lebanese soldier has died of wounds he sustained in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, the Lebanese army said, as the Israeli military steps up its air campaign and ground incursion.
The Lebanese army said four other soldiers were wounded in an air strike while they were travelling by car and motorcycle in the Qaaqaait Al Jisr in Nabatieh. At least one other was in a critical condition.
The Lebanese army is not part of the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, which resumed on March 2 after the militant group launched attacks on Israel following the outbreak of the US-Israel war against Iran. The Lebanese Armed Forces have the responsibility of disarming Hezbollah as part of a ceasefire deal struck in November 2024.
As it intensifies its air campaign, the Israeli military is also pushing forces deeper into southern Lebanon. On Tuesday, it said it had deployed additional troops as part of an “expanded buffer zone”, broadening its ground invasion in the south.
Before troops moved into the area, the military said it had carried out heavy air strikes and artillery shelling on what it described as Hezbollah targets.
The Israeli army also said the 36th Division had in recent days started a new “targeted ground operation towards an additional objective”, to expand what it described as a “forward defence area” on the Lebanese border, aimed at pushing Hezbollah fighters farther away from Israeli communities near the frontier.
Israel’s bombing of Lebanon has displaced more than one million people across the country, the Lebanese government said on Monday. At least 886 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since March 2, according to Lebanese authorities, including 111 children and 38 health workers.
Further, the Israeli army has instructed all residents to leave southern Lebanon and move north of the Zahrani river. The warning was first issued on Thursday.
Series of strikes
Israeli warplanes carried out a series of strikes at dawn on several areas of Lebanon, the National News Agency (NNA) reported.
The agency said an air strike on Bint Jbeil in the south killed three people and injured several more. NNA also reported Israeli incursions in eastern and western parts. It said an Israeli force advanced towards the outskirts of Aita Al Shaab in the west, accompanied by air strikes.
Lebanese state media said Israel carried out dawn air raids on three neighbourhoods in the capital, hitting a residential building in Al Kafaat in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Two Israeli strikes hit a residential building in the Dohat Aramoun area overnight, injuring an Ethiopian woman, Lebanon's Health Ministry said. The town, south of Beirut in the Aley district, has been bombed several times since March 2. It is not known as a traditional area of Hezbollah influence.
In the east, Israeli forces detained Lebanese citizen Qassem Al Qadri at dawn during a ground incursion into the outskirts of Kfarchouba, before later releasing him.
A number of Lebanese are still being held in Israeli prisons, captured during the last war and since the 2024 ceasefire, some of them civilians.
