By Tala Ramadan
BEIRUT, March 17 (Reuters) – One Lebanese soldier was killed and four were wounded in an Israeli airstrike in the city of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese army said on Tuesday, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.
The soldiers were struck while travelling by car and motorcycle and were taken to hospital, the army said in a post on X, adding in a subsequent statement that one of the wounded had died of his injuries.
The Israeli military said it was aware of reports that Lebanese soldiers were wounded in a strike in southern Lebanon and that the incident was under review.
It said that it operates against Hezbollah and not against the Lebanese Armed Forces.
The strike comes amid intensifying Israeli attacks across Lebanon, which have killed more than 880 people and displaced more than 1 million, according to Lebanese authorities.
The Lebanese army has also reported casualties in recent days, including an incident earlier this month in which three soldiers were among those killed in Israeli strikes, according to the army.
Israel’s military, which has occupied five positions in southern Lebanon since a November 2024 ceasefire with Hezbollah, sent additional forces into the country after the Shi’ite Muslim group fired a salvo of rockets on March 2, dragging Lebanon into the expanding U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz has warned Lebanon that it could face territorial losses unless Hezbollah was disarmed.
(Reporting by Tala Ramadan; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Pooja Desai)
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