Israel conducted a wave of air strikes in south Lebanon, killing 12 people including women and children according to the Lebanese health ministry on Monday, in an intensification of violence after a weeks-long lull.

Israel's military vowed to continue targeting Hezbollah after the overnight strikes. Eleven people, including two children and four women, died in one attack on a building in Kfar Rumman that killed 11 people, the ministry said.

A separate attack in the same town killed a rescuer and wounded another, the ministry said. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency had previously reported two wounded rescuers.

The strikes, which came despite a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, follow separate raids a day earlier that left 11 dead.

Israel has been intensifying strikes in the southern Nabatieh area after saying on Thursday that it had seized the strategic Ali al-Taher ridge from Hezbollah, a claim the Iran-backed group has not commented on.

The Israeli military in a statement said it had struck Hezbollah "infrastructure sites" across southern Lebanon after the launch of two explosive drones towards its troops, as well as "several terrorists" it said were transferring weapons.

The army said it "will continue to operate to remove threats while remaining committed to the ceasefire agreement."

Fighting in Lebanon, which erupted in March after Hezbollah targeted Israel in support of Iran, had decreased since a June memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran on the wider Middle East war and an Israel-Lebanon framework agreement later that month. (AFP)



Edited by Robert Kemp