At least 13 people were killed and many others severely injured after Israeli forces attacked a densely populated Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, marking the deadliest strike since Israel and Hezbollah reached a ceasefire last year.
A drone strike targeted a car parking at the Ain al-Hilweh camp on the outskirts of the coastal city of Saida at 9.20pm local time and three missiles then hit the nearby Khalid bin Al-Walid Mosque and the Khalid bin Al-Walid Centre, trapping many people under the rubble, the state-run National News Agency said.
Ain al-Hilweh is the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, originally established for people driven by Israeli forces from their homes in mostly coastal Palestinian towns in 1948, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
The Israeli military claimed that the strike targeted a “Hamastraining compound” that was being used to “plan and carry out terrorist attacks against the IDF and the State of Israel”.
Hamas condemned the attack which it said hit a sports playground. “There are no military installations in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon,” the group added.
The Lebanese health ministry reported “13 dead and a number of others wounded” in the attack and added that “ambulances are still transporting more wounded to nearby hospitals”.
Pictures from the scene showed emergency workers at the entrance of the refugee camp as smoke billowed from the affected area. Ambulances rushed to the affected area through the narrow lanes of the crowded camp.
Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon in the past two years have killed scores of people, including members of Hezbollah as well as Palestinian factions such as Hamas.
Saleh Arouri, deputy political head of Hamas and founder of the group’s military wing, was killed in a drone strike on a southern suburb of Beirut on 2 January 2024.
Israel launched a devastating war on Gaza in October 2023 after about 1,200 people were killed during a Hamas attack on southern Israel.
The Israeli assault killed at least 69,169 Palestinians, according to the health ministry, and laid most of the besieged strip to waste before a ceasefire took effect last month.
A day after Israel launched the war, Hezbollah began firing rockets toward Israeli posts along the border.
Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes and the two sides became locked in an escalating conflict that became a full-blown war in late September 2024.
That war, the most recent of several conflicts involving Hezbollah over the last four decades, killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians, and caused an estimated $11bn worth of destruction, according to the World Bank. In Israel, 127 people died, including 80 soldiers.
The war ended in late November 2024 with a ceasefire brokered by the US. Since then, Israel has carried out scores of airstrikes in violation of the ceasefire, saying Hezbollah was trying to rebuild its capabilities.
The Lebanese health ministry has reported more than 270 people killed and about 850 wounded by Israeli attacks since the ceasefire.
Israel has also routinely violated the ceasefire in Gaza, carrying out deadly attacks that have left scores of Palestinians dead and many more wounded.
Additional reporting by agencies.
