Four people were killed on Saturday in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, Lebanon's state news agency reported, while the Israeli military said Hezbollah had fired rockets at Israel, posing the latest challenges to the tenuous ceasefire.
The ceasefire agreed between Israel and Lebanon has led to a significant reduction in hostilities, but Israel and militant group Hezbollah have continued to clash in southern Lebanon, where Israel has kept soldiers in the self-declared buffer zone.
A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the military had been instructed to attack Hezbollah targets in Lebanon forcefully, providing no further details.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that it had struck loaded rocket launchers belonging to Hezbollah in three locations in southern Lebanon overnight and targeted several Hezbollah fighters in separate strikes. It said later in the day that it had also struck facilities used by Hezbollah's elite Radwan forces in southern Lebanon.
A Hezbollah lawmaker said on Friday that a US-mediated ceasefire in the conflict with Israel was meaningless, a day after it was extended for three weeks. The truce had been due to expire on Sunday.
