Lebanese media report that three children were among the five killed in Israeli attacks

Official Lebanese media reported that five people, including three Syrian children, were killed in separate Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon on Tuesday. Hezbollah vowed to fire rockets at Israel in retaliation.

“Three Syrian children” were “killed in an enemy attack on farmland in the village of Umm Toot,” the National News Agency (NNA) said.

It also said that a “hostile” drone attack targeted a motorcycle on the road to Kfar Tebnit in southern Lebanon, killing two Syrians.

A Lebanese security source, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said: AFP The two Syrians were “civilians” who worked nearby and had been swimming in the area.

The NNA said that “eyewitnesses reported that there were two people on the motorcycle and that as several citizens attempted to approach the motorcycle … a second collision occurred.”

Hezbollah said it fired volleys of Katyusha rockets into northern Israel in response to the Israeli attacks.

In separate statements, the group cited both “the deaths of two civilians” in Kfar Tebnit and “the horrific massacre in the village of Umm Toot” as reasons for the retaliatory fire.

The United Nations Children’s Fund said that “as long as the violence continues, more children will be at risk.”

“The death of three more children in an airstrike today while they were reportedly playing outside their home in southern Lebanon is horrifying,” UNICEF said on social media platform X.

Since the Palestinian militia’s attack on Israel on October 7 triggered the war in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah has been engaged in almost daily exchanges of fire with Israeli forces in support of its ally Hamas.

The Israeli military said that 40 missiles fired from Lebanon were initially identified on Tuesday, and another ten were added later in the day.

The air force carried out strikes on parts of southern Lebanon where Hezbollah bases were allegedly located, including a “terrorist cell” in the Yarin region near Umm Toot.

AFP Images show Israel’s Iron Dome defense system intercepting rockets over the border and smoke rising over the Lebanese village of Kfar Kela after an Israeli attack.

During the night, sirens sounded in northern Israel warning of shelling, the military said. However, there were no reports of casualties.

In Lebanon, 511 people have been killed in cross-border violence since October, most of them fighters, but also at least 104 civilians, according to a AFP to match.

On the Israeli side, 17 soldiers and 13 civilians were killed, according to authorities.

The violence is largely confined to the border region and raises fears of an open conflict between the two enemies, who last fought a war in the summer of 2006.