Israeli strikes have killed at least 18 people across southern Lebanon, as Lebanese authorities reported that the overall death toll from the war that began last month between Israel and Lebanese group Hezbollah has surpassed 2,000.
Israeli strikes on a village near Sidon in southern Lebanon killed at least eight people and wounded nine others, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said on Saturday.
Earlier, it said that at least 10 people, including three emergency workers, had been killed in Israeli strikes in the Nabatieh district.
In its latest tally, the Health Ministry reported that at least 2,020 people have been killed and 6,436 others wounded since Lebanon was drawn into the US-Israel war on Iran on March 2. Hezbollah launched rocket fire at Israel in support of its backer Iran, sparking massive Israeli strikes and a ground invasion.
Meanwhile, Israeli media reported that two Israeli soldiers were wounded during clashes with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on Saturday.
Israel’s Channel 13, citing the military, said the two soldiers from the Paratroopers Brigade sustained moderate injuries from shrapnel during the confrontation.
The violence comes as Iran-backed Hezbollah renewed its rejection of direct negotiations between Israel and Lebanon aimed at ending the war.
President Joseph Aoun’s office said on Friday that officials from Lebanon, Israel and the United States would meet next week in Washington “to discuss declaring a ceasefire and the start date for negotiations between Lebanon and Israel under US auspices”.
Hundreds of people gathered on Saturday near the government headquarters in central Beirut in support of Hezbollah and to protest against the talks with Israel, some waving the group’s yellow flags or the Iranian standard.
Demonstrator Ruqaya Msheik said the protest was a message that Lebanon “will not be Israeli”.
“Whoever wants peace with Israel is not Lebanese,” she said, adding: “Those who shake hands with the enemy … are Zionists.”
Hezbollah and its ally, the Amal Movement, issued a statement calling on supporters to avoid demonstrating “at this delicate stage”, citing interests of “stability, the protection of civil peace and avoiding any division that the Israeli enemy seeks”.
Earlier, Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said the decision to hold direct talks with Israel was “a blatant violation of the [national] pact, the constitution and Lebanese laws”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that any peace agreement reached with Lebanon must “last for generations” and also call for Hezbollah’s disarmament.
After a ceasefire was announced between the US and Iran this week, Washington and Tehran have been at odds over whether it also applies to Israel’s bombardment and invasion of Lebanon.
The dispute arose during the historic in-person ceasefire talks held in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, between the US and Iran on Saturday afternoon.
Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Tehran, said that Iran was able to secure “a kind of guarantee from the US that Israel is going to decrease its attacks on Lebanon”.
However, he said that “nothing [has] been confirmed … from Israel, with respect to Lebanon.” While “there have been fewer attacks on Beirut and the southern suburbs,” nothing has been “announced with respect to a ceasefire”, he said.
