Israeli air strikes in southern Lebanon killed at least 12 people on 7 September, including children and medics, according to reports from Al Jazeera citing Lebanese officials and state media.
The deadliest attack hit a residential building in Kfar Reman, in Nabatieh province, early on Monday. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said that strike killed 11 people, among them two children, and wounded five others. A separate Israeli drone strike on a civilian vehicle in the same town killed at least one medic, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency.
The attacks are the latest sign that the ceasefire arrangement between Israel and Lebanon remains deeply fragile. According to the reported framing from Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, the surge in strikes is part of an Israeli effort to undermine the US-brokered framework meant to end the conflict. The Al Jazeera report says Aoun made that accusation while meeting French Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, describing the attacks as an attempt to derail the agreement.
The military situation on the ground has worsened quickly. Al Jazeera said Israel had stepped up attacks across southern Lebanon over the previous three days, killing at least 27 people and injuring 69, based on figures from the Lebanese Health Ministry. The same report said strikes also hit Deir al-Zahrani after a forced evacuation order, with the Israeli military saying it targeted a building near a Hezbollah facility used to launch an explosive drone.
The violence has not been limited to one town or one target type. Reporting in the article describes residential buildings, civilian vehicles and ambulance crews as repeated points of exposure. It also says Israeli forces have continued demolishing buildings in southern Lebanon, including in areas inside what Israel calls a security zone. In al-Mansouri, the National News Agency reported massive explosions and said nearly two-thirds of the town’s houses had been destroyed, with the rest considered uninhabitable.
The broader toll is severe. The Lebanese Health Ministry said Israeli strikes in the conflict’s escalated phase have killed more than 4,350 people and wounded more than 12,300 since early March. It also reported 179 attacks on ambulance crews since 2 March, leaving 135 healthcare workers dead. Those figures suggest the war has steadily expanded beyond direct combat between armed groups and into a campaign that repeatedly affects civilian infrastructure and emergency response.
The Al Jazeera report also notes that the US-brokered deal signed in June was supposed to create a “pilot zone” in which the Lebanese army would work to disarm Hezbollah while Israeli forces withdrew. Instead, the process has stalled. Israel still occupies dozens of villages in southern Lebanon and has refused further withdrawals, according to the report.
That stalemate helps explain why the mood in the south has turned from cautious return to fear. Residents had begun rebuilding after the June agreement, but Al Jazeera’s reporting says uncertainty is now dominant again. Civil defence teams were still searching through the wreckage in Kfar Reman on Monday, but the reporting made clear the operation had shifted from rescue to recovery.
For now, the immediate issue is not only the number of dead, but the collapse of any confidence that the current framework can prevent further strikes. The attacks on a home, a vehicle and emergency workers point to a conflict that remains active despite the existence of a ceasefire plan on paper. If the agreement is to hold, both sides will need to stop testing it. So far, neither the battlefield reality nor the political rhetoric suggests that is happening.
