Israeli air strikes kill 10 people in southern Lebanon 

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

Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) on Saturday said at least three people were killed in an Israeli attack on the town of Shoukine in Nabatieh district.

Earlier, an Israeli strike on a car in the village of Kfar Dajjal killed two people. A home was also hit in the village of Lwaizeh, killing three, while a strike on the village of Shoukin killed two others, NNA said.

Israeli forces also carried out an air strike targeting the vicinity of al-Saada Bakery near the al-Quds roundabout in the city of Nabatieh, and warplanes struck the town of Siddiqine in the Tyre district.

Israel claims its attacks target the pro-Iran Lebanese group Hezbollah, but a large proportion of those killed have been civilians.

At least 44 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the last two days alone, according to NNA. The death toll from Israeli attacks since the start of the renewed war on March 2 has risen to at least 2,618 people, Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health said on Friday.

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

Meanwhile, Hezbollah on Friday pledged to continue attacks on Israeli forces inside Lebanese territory.

In a statement, the group said it targeted multiple gatherings of Israeli soldiers and vehicles across several front-line towns in southern Lebanon, including artillery strikes on troops in the vicinity of the Moussa Abbas complex in Bint Jbeil and the village of Hula, as well as an attack on soldiers in Biyyada using a squadron of diving suicide drones.

In recent days, the group has been using small fibre-optic drones to hit Israeli tanks. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed.

Beyond the troop concentrations, Hezbollah said it targeted specific military hardware, including a military Humvee vehicle in the town of Taybeh and a Merkava tank in Rishaf, both of which were struck by drones.

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 launched a war on its main backer, Iran.

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

A 10-day ceasefire declared in Washington went into effect on April 17 and was later extended by three weeks.

Reporting from Beirut, Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands said the ceasefire exists in name only.

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

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

“It is incumbent on Israel to stop this bombardment of Lebanon,” Fu Cong said, as China assumed the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council for May.

Reporting from Amman, Jordan, Al Jazeera’s Jack Barton said Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is coming under intense pressure from all quarters now 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 been saying they are ready to re-engage, to broaden the conflict if they get the green light,” he said.

“On Friday, senior officers were telling multiple Israeli media outlets that they were frustrated, that they believe the ceasefire was causing harm for Israeli soldiers, who are seeing daily injuries now from these first-person view fibre-optic cable drones increasingly used by Hezbollah.”