Lebanese people inspect the site where Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday night hit bulldozers in Ansariyeh village, south Lebanon, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Lebanese people inspect the site where Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday night hit bulldozers in Ansariyeh village, south Lebanon, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon killed at least four people on Wednesday, the health ministry and state media said.
The health ministry reported four killed and 17 wounded, including children, in separate Israeli strikes across the south.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on all incidents, but said it killed Hezbollah member Al-Munim Moussa Sweidan in a strike on Yater.
The Israeli army later added that it struck "a Hezbollah site in the Ansariyeh area," alleging the site stored "engineering vehicles" intended to rebuild the group's capabilities.
The Lebanese health ministry said that at least 10 people were wounded in Ansariyeh, including three children.
Israel regularly bombs Lebanon despite a November ceasefire that ended over a year of hostilities with Hezbollah.
The ceasefire stipulates that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers can deploy in south Lebanon, excluding both the Israeli army and Hezbollah from the region.
However, Israel has maintained troops in five locations it deems strategic.
Lebanon's government is expected to convene on Friday to discuss the Lebanese army's plan to disarm Hezbollah, a mission the cabinet assigned it in early August.
Lebanese President Says Security Deal with Israel Must Come Before Netanyahu Meetinghttps://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5269535-lebanese-president-says-security-deal-israel-must-come-netanyahu-meeting
Israeli troops maneuver on the Lebanese side of the border, as seen from the Upper Galilee in northern Israel, 04 May 2026, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. (EPA)
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Lebanese President Says Security Deal with Israel Must Come Before Netanyahu Meeting
Israeli troops maneuver on the Lebanese side of the border, as seen from the Upper Galilee in northern Israel, 04 May 2026, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. (EPA)
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said on Monday that a security deal and an end to Israeli attacks were needed before any meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sought by Washington.
Aoun's office said in a statement that the president "reiterated his view that the timing is not appropriate now for a meeting" with Netanyahu, and quoted Aoun as saying: "We must first reach a security agreement and stop the Israeli attacks on us before we raise the issue of a meeting between us."
Earlier, Hezbollah said its forces clashed with Israeli soldiers in south Lebanon near the border where its troops are still operating, despite a ceasefire since April 17.
Hezbollah in a statement said that after Israeli troops attempted to advance near the town of Deir Seryan -- which is inside the Israeli-declared "yellow line" where Lebanese residents have been told not to return -- its fighters "opened fire on the enemy force and engaged in heavy clashes with them".
The Israeli military confirmed there were clashes with Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon.
"Earlier today, two soldiers were moderately injured as a result of a close-quarters encounter with Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon," the military said in a statement.
"The soldiers were evacuated to receive medical treatment at a hospital."
Smoke rises from inside Khartoum Airport during previous clashes between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese army (file photo – Reuters)
Khartoum Airport came under drone attack on Monday, with Sudanese army air defenses intercepting the aircraft, a military source told AFP
The incident follows attacks by the Rapid Support Forces on the Sudanese capital two days earlier that left five people dead.
Smoke rises from inside Khartoum Airport during previous clashes between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese army (file photo – Reuters)
The military source said: “Our air defenses successfully shot down drones targeting the eastern perimeter of Khartoum Airport.”
Witnesses reported hearing explosions and seeing plumes of smoke rising from the Safa neighborhood, located east of the airport.
‘Freshly Dug Graves’ as Hezbollah Pays Steep Price in Battle to Reverse its Fortuneshttps://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5269392-%E2%80%98freshly-dug-graves%E2%80%99-hezbollah-pays-steep-price-battle-reverse-its-fortunes
FILE PHOTO: Mourners carry coffins during the funeral of four Hezbollah fighters and two civilians, amid a temporary ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, in the village of Maaroub, southern Lebanon, April 26, 2026. REUTERS/Marko Djurica/File Photo
‘Freshly Dug Graves’ as Hezbollah Pays Steep Price in Battle to Reverse its Fortunes
FILE PHOTO: Mourners carry coffins during the funeral of four Hezbollah fighters and two civilians, amid a temporary ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, in the village of Maaroub, southern Lebanon, April 26, 2026. REUTERS/Marko Djurica/File Photo
Hezbollah has paid a heavy price for going to war with Israel on March 2: Israel has occupied a chunk of southern Lebanon, displaced hundreds of thousands of its Shiite constituents and killed as many as several thousand of its fighters, according to previously unreported casualty estimates from within the group.
The move has brought severe political consequences, too. In Beirut, opposition has hardened to its status as an armed group, which domestic rivals see as exposing Lebanon to repeated wars with Israel.
In April, Lebanon's government held face-to-face talks with Israel for the first time in decades, a decision Hezbollah firmly opposed. However, more than a dozen Hezbollah officials told Reuters they see a chance to reverse deteriorating fortunes by aligning with Tehran in its war with Israel and the United States.
The group, founded by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps in 1982, opened fire two days into the conflict, which began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28.
The group's calculations are based on the assessment that its participation would force Lebanon onto the agenda of US-Iranian negotiations, and that Iranian pressure can secure a more robust ceasefire than one that took effect in November 2024 following a conflict sparked by the war in Gaza, the officials said.
Hezbollah was mauled in the last war, which killed its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, along with some 5,000 fighters, and weakened its long-dominant hold over the Lebanese state.
Rearmed with Iranian help, it has used new tactics and drones, surprising many with its capabilities after a fragile 15-month truce during which Hezbollah held fire, even as Israel continued to kill its members.
Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim al-Moussawi denied the group was acting on Iran's behalf when it resumed hostilities, as alleged by opponents. He told Reuters Hezbollah saw a window to "break this vicious cycle ... where the Israelis can target, assassinate, bombard, kill, without any revenge."
He acknowledged losses and damage in southern Lebanon but said "you don't go into making calculations of how many are going to be killed" when "pride and sovereignty and independence" are at stake.
Hezbollah’s media office said the figure of several thousand fighters killed in the present war was false.
FILE PHOTO: A family stand next to a fire outside their tent at a temporary encampment for displaced people, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, in Beirut, Lebanon, March 30, 2026. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi/File Photo
While a US-mediated ceasefire that took effect on April 16 has led to a significant reduction in hostilities, Israel and Hezbollah have continued to trade blows in the south, where Israel maintains troops in a self-declared "buffer zone".
Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said Hezbollah had "shown more resilience than many thought possible, but that was not a strategic gain in itself".
"The only thing that will contain Israel is a comprehensive US-Iran deal," he said. "Without a deal, there's going to be a lot of pain for everyone. At best, a hurting stalemate."
More than 2,600 people have been killed since March 2, around a fifth of them women, children and medics, Lebanon's health ministry has reported. Its toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Three sources, two of them Hezbollah officials, said the ministry's figures do not include many of the group's casualties. They said several thousand Hezbollah fighters have been killed, though the group does not have the full picture yet.
In a statement to Reuters, Hezbollah’s media office denied the figures cited by the sources, and that the numbers published by Lebanon’s health ministry included its members killed in Israeli strikes.
One source, a Hezbollah commander, said scores of fighters had gone to the frontline towns of Bint Jbeil and Khiyam intending to fight to the death. Their bodies have yet to be recovered.
In the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, more than two dozen freshly dug graves were quickly filled with fighters' bodies in the days after the ceasefire took hold. Simple marble tombstones identify some as commanders, others as fighters.
In one southern village alone, Yater, the council recorded the deaths of 34 Hezbollah fighters.
Lebanon's Shiite community has borne the brunt of Israel's attacks, forced to flee into Christian, Druze and other areas, where many blame Hezbollah for starting the war.
Smoke rises from the site of Israeli airstrikes that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Habbouch on May 1, 2026. (Photo by Abbas FAKIH / AFP)
Israel has been entrenching its hold over a security zone stretching as far as 10 km (6 miles) into Lebanon and demolishing villages, saying it aims to shield northern Israel from attacks by Hezbollah militants embedded in civilian areas.
An Israeli government official said Hezbollah had abrogated the November 2024 ceasefire by firing on Israeli citizens on March 2. The threat to northern Israel would be eradicated, the official said, adding thousands of Hezbollah militants had been killed, and Israel was steadily destroying the group's infrastructure.
The Israeli military says Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel since March 2. Israel has announced 17 soldiers killed in southern Lebanon, along with two civilians in northern Israel.
Citing ongoing Israeli strikes, Hezbollah has called the April ceasefire meaningless and continued to attack.
A diplomat who has contact with Hezbollah described its decision to enter the war as a big gamble and a survival strategy, saying it felt it needed to be part of the problem so it could be part of an eventual regional solution.
It has yet to be seen if the gamble will pay off.
Tehran has demanded that Israel's campaign against Hezbollah be included in any deal on the wider war. But US President Donald Trump said last month that any deal Washington reaches with Tehran "is in no way subject to Lebanon".
A spokesperson for Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, Tahir Andrabi, referred Reuters to an April 16 statement in which he said peace in Lebanon was essential to the talks it is mediating between the US and Iran.
A Western official said they saw a possibility the US and Iran might eventually reach a settlement that does not address the war in Lebanon.
Asked about this, the US State Department, Iran's mission to the United Nations in Geneva and Lebanon's government did not immediately comment.
Hezbollah's Moussawi said a ceasefire in Lebanon continues to be a top priority for Iran, adding Tehran shares Lebanon's objectives, including that Israel halt attacks and withdraw from Lebanon. Hezbollah has "full trust in Iran - that the Iranians will not sell their own friends", he said.
The State Department referred Reuters to an April 27 interview Secretary of State Marco Rubio did with Fox News, in which he said Israel had a right to defend itself against Hezbollah's attacks, and that he didn't think Israel wanted to maintain its buffer zone in Lebanon indefinitely.
The United States has urged Israel "to make sure their responses are proportional and targeted," he said.
When the April 16 ceasefire was announced, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hezbollah's disarmament would be a fundamental demand in peace talks with Lebanon.
Hezbollah has ruled out disarmament, saying the matter of its weapons is a topic for a national dialogue. Any move by Lebanon to disarm the group by force would risk igniting conflict in a country shattered by civil war from 1975 to 1990.
Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have sought Hezbollah's peaceful disarmament since last year. On March 2, the government banned the group's military activities.
Hezbollah has demanded the government cancel that decision and end its direct talks with Israel.
Lebanese officials have told Reuters they believe direct talks with Israel under the auspices of the US are the best way to secure a lasting ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops, as only Washington has enough leverage with Israel to achieve those aims.
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