Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon kill 41 people in 24 hours | Israel attacks Lebanon News

Strikes on Saturday killed at least 10 people, raising the death toll from Israeli attacks on Lebanon since March 2 to 2,659, with 8,183 others injured.

Israel did launched multiple strikes across southern Lebanon, killing at least 10 people in further violations of the “ceasefire” declared two weeks ago.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said the latest wave of attacks on Saturday brought the total recorded over the previous 24 hours to 41. The overall death toll since March 2 is 2,659, with 8,183 injured.

Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) quoted the health ministry as saying three people were killed in an Israeli attack on the town of Shoukine in the Nabatieh district.

An earlier attack on a car in the town of Kfar Dajjal killed two people. Three others were killed when a house was hit in the village of Lwaizeh. A strike on the village of Shoukin killed two people, NNA reported.

Israeli forces carried out an airstrike near al-Quds roundabout in the city of Nabatieh, and warplanes attacked the town of Siddiqine in the Tire district.

Israel continues to violate the ceasefire that began on April 17 and was later extended until mid-May.

Israel claims its strikes target the pro-Iranian Lebanese group Hezbollah, but many of the dead were civilians.

More than one million people in Lebanon have been registered as displaced since the outbreak of the war.

Hezbollah says attacks will continue

Despite the rising death toll, Hezbollah pledged on Friday to continue attacks on Israeli forces inside Lebanese territory.

The group said it targeted several gatherings of Israeli soldiers and vehicles in several frontline towns in southern Lebanon. The attacks included artillery strikes on troops near Moussa Abbas compound in Bint Jbeil and the village of Hula. Drones were used to attack soldiers in Biyyada.

Hezbollah recently used small drones controlled by fiber optic cables to hit Israeli tanks. Three Israeli soldiers were killed.

Attack drones also targeted military hardware, including a Humvee truck in the town of Taybeh and a Merkava tank in Rishaf.

The latest war between Israel and Hezbollah began on March 2 when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel two days after the United States and Israel attacked its main backer, Iran.

Israel has since carried out hundreds of airstrikes and launched a ground invasion into southern Lebanon, capturing dozens of towns and villages along the border.

A 10-day ceasefire declared in Washington began on April 17 and was extended by three weeks.

Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands reported from Beirut that the ceasefire exists in name only.

“Essentially, it’s a diplomatic construct. The reality is that, certainly in the south, the war continues, and in fact it’s expanding,” he said.

On Friday, China’s envoy to the United Nations told reporters at UN headquarters in New York that there was no real ceasefire in place, just a “less fire.”

“It is Israel’s duty to stop this bombing of Lebanon,” Fu Cong said, as China assumed the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council for May.

Al Jazeera’s Jack Barton, reporting from Amman, Jordan, said Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is coming under intense pressure from all quarters to abandon the ceasefire.

“The majority of the Israeli public is against it. The opposition is against the ceasefire. And all week the army has said they are ready to get involved again, to widen the conflict if they get the green light,” he said.

“On Friday, senior officers told several Israeli media that they are frustrated, that they believe the ceasefire is harming Israeli soldiers, who are now seeing daily injuries from these first-person-view fiber-optic cable drones increasingly used by Hezbollah.”