Israel kills 6+ beyond Lebanon Yellow Line
Shafaq News- Beirut (Updated at 9:14)
An Israeli airstrike killed at least seven people and wounded three others in an attack on a house in the southern Lebanese town of Ansar early on Saturday.
Lebanese media reported that Israeli warplanes also launched “heavy” strikes on Ali Al-Taher and the outskirts of Nabatieh Al-Fawqa. Ansar and some villages within Nabatieh lie well beyond Israel’s “Yellow Line,” which runs roughly 5 to 10 kilometers inside Lebanon. Israeli forces also continued demolitions and machine-gun fire overnight around Bint Jbeil, Kawnin, and Aita Al-Jabal.
Ali Al-Taher, strategic high ground near Nabatieh, has become a key issue in implementing the US-brokered June 26 Lebanon-Israel framework. Asharq Al-Awsat, citing a political source familiar with Lebanese-US discussions, said Hezbollah’s evacuation of Ali Al-Taher and its handover to the Lebanese Army was considered a prerequisite for advancing the framework, which links a progressive Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon to the Lebanese government’s verified disarmament of “non-state armed groups,” including Hezbollah.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem earlier ruled out surrender despite the “unequal balance of power” with Israel and rejected the framework in full, calling it “Israeli dictates written in Israeli ink,” while US Ambassador Michel Issa said after meeting Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri that Israeli attacks and demolitions would stop once Hezbollah handed over its weapons.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz had also insisted that Israeli forces would remain in southern Lebanon until Hezbollah was disarmed.
Read more: Lebanon's Hezbollah shifts from battlefield to political fight over weapons
