Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon kills 13 people

"An Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon on Tuesday killed 13 people and wounded several others, state media and government officials said. It was the deadliest strike on Lebanon since a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war a year ago. The drone strike hit a car in the parking lot of a mosque in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp on the outskirts of the coastal city of Sidon, the state-run National News Agency said."

"The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas training compound that was being used to prepare an attack against Israel and its army. It added that the Israeli army would continue to act against Hamas wherever the group operates. Hamas condemned the attack in a statement saying the strike hit a sports playground and denying that it was a training compound."

"Over the past two years, Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon have killed scores of officials from the militant Hezbollah group as well as Palestinian factions such as Hamas. Saleh Arouri, the deputy political head of Hamas and a founder of the group's military wing, was killed in a drone strike on a southern suburb of Beirut on Jan. 2, 2024. Several other Hamas officials have been killed in strikes since then."

An Israeli airstrike struck a car in a mosque parking lot in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp near Sidon, killing 13 people and wounding several others, according to Lebanese officials and the Health Ministry. Hamas fighters prevented journalists from reaching the scene while ambulances evacuated the wounded and dead. The Israeli military said the target was a Hamas training compound preparing an attack against Israel and said it would continue operations against Hamas wherever the group operates. Hamas denied the claim, saying the strike hit a sports playground. Israeli airstrikes in recent years have killed Hezbollah and Palestinian faction officials, including Saleh Arouri on Jan. 2, 2024, and the Israel-Hezbollah confrontation escalated into full war in late September 2024.

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