Israeli Airstrike on Lebanon’s Ein el-Hilweh Camp Kills 13

An Israeli drone strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon killed 13 people on Tuesday, marking the deadliest attack in the country since the Israel–Hezbollah ceasefire a year ago, according to the Associated Press.

The strike hit a car in the parking area of a mosque inside the Ein el-Hilweh camp near the coastal city of Sidon, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said. The Lebanese Health Ministry confirmed that 13 people were killed and several others wounded, without providing additional details. Hamas fighters in the area blocked journalists from accessing the site as ambulances moved the dead and injured.

The Israeli military said it targeted “a Hamas training compound that was being used to prepare an attack against Israel and its army,” adding that it would continue to act against Hamas “wherever the group operates.” AP reported that Hamas, in a statement, denied the claim, saying the strike hit a sports playground.

Over the past two years, Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed numerous officials from Hezbollah and Palestinian factions, including Hamas. Saleh Arouri, Hamas’s deputy political leader and a founder of its military wing, was killed in a drone strike in a southern Beirut suburb on 2 January 2024, reported AP. Other Hamas figures have been targeted since.

Hamas led the 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel in which about 1,200 people were killed. Israel’s subsequent offensive in Gaza resulted in tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The day after the Israel–Hamas war began, Hezbollah launched rockets at Israeli military positions along the border. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes, and the exchanges escalated into a full-scale war in late September 2024. That conflict killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians, and caused an estimated US$11 billion in damage, the World Bank has said. In Israel, 127 people were killed, including 80 soldiers.

The war ended in late November 2024 under a US-brokered ceasefire. Since then, Israel has carried out numerous airstrikes in Lebanon, arguing that Hezbollah is working to rebuild its military capacity. Lebanon’s Health Ministry says more than 270 people have been killed and around 850 wounded by Israeli military actions since the ceasefire.

(With inputs from AP)