Israeli strikes kill eight in southern Lebanon

Israeli strikes kill eight in southern Lebanon, Lebanese army reports first patrol hit since truce, evacuation orders expand as buffer zone logic spreads

Eight people were killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Tuesday April 28, including three rescue workers, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Euronews reports that an air raid on Majdal Zoun initially killed five people, with three Lebanese civil defence paramedics later found trapped under rubble after the strike hit while they were on a rescue mission.

The deaths come under what both sides describe as a ceasefire, but the mechanics on the ground look closer to managed escalation. Israel issued fresh evacuation orders for residents in more than a dozen villages and towns, urging people to move north toward Sidon District, according to Euronews. Shortly afterwards, Israeli state media reported airstrikes across southern Lebanon, including targets outside or on the border of the “yellow line” buffer zone that Israel has been occupying.

Lebanon’s army said two of its troops were wounded by hostile Israeli targeting of an army patrol, which it described as the first such incident since the truce began. That detail matters because it widens the set of actors who can claim direct harm. A ceasefire that tolerates strikes on armed groups can survive as long as national forces are not pulled into the accounting; once regular troops are hit, the political cost of restraint rises.

Israel’s military said an employee of an engineering company working for Israel’s defence ministry was killed in southern Lebanon the same day. Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Saar said Israel has no territorial ambitions in Lebanon and would leave when Hezbollah and other “terror organisations” are dismantled, Euronews reports. The condition is open-ended: dismantling is not a date on a calendar, and it is not something the Lebanese state can deliver quickly even if it wanted to.

Alongside the airstrikes, Euronews notes growing scrutiny over destruction of civilian infrastructure. Amnesty International urged Israel to stop destroying civilian property, and a video circulating online appeared to show Israeli excavators wrecking solar panels and a water station in the border village of Debel. The Israeli military said it was investigating that incident. Earlier in April, a separate Debel video of a soldier smashing a Jesus statue drew condemnation and led to military detention for the soldier involved.

Israel also announced that troops in Qantara found two Hezbollah tunnels built over roughly a decade and stretching two kilometres, and said it used more than 450 tonnes of explosives to demolish them. In the same area, Lebanese media reported an Israeli detonation.

The week’s ledger is therefore split between long-prepared military infrastructure and short-notice evacuation posts on X. The paramedics in Majdal Zoun were killed while trying to pull people out of rubble.