Displaced Syrian killed in Israeli airstrike on S. Lebanon

BEIRUT/DAMASCUS, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) — A displaced Syrian was killed Saturday morning in an Israeli airstrike targeting a motorcycle in southern Lebanon, according to Lebanese military sources.
The sources, who spoke anonymously, told Xinhua that an Israeli drone fired two air-to-ground missiles at a motorcycle on the road of Hamoul near the town of Naqoura, burning the motorcycle and killing its driver.
The body of the victim was transported by a civil defense vehicle to a hospital in the city of Tyre in southern Lebanon, the sources said.
The sources told Xinhua that Israeli warplanes and drones carried out three airstrikes Saturday morning on the outskirts of three border towns and villages in southern Lebanon, and Israeli artillery shelled eight towns and villages in southern Lebanon.
So far, the Israeli side has not commented on the attacks.
Also on Saturday, Lebanese Minister of Public Health Firass Abiad said at least 31 people, including three children and seven women, were killed, and 66 others injured in an Israeli airstrike on Friday targeting a building in the Jamous area of Dahieh in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah issued separate statements mourning the death of 14 commanders who it said were killed in Friday’s airstrike.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Saturday that a Syrian woman and her child, both traveling from the rural area of Syria’s Aleppo to Lebanon, died of injuries sustained in Friday’s airstrike.
Since the Gaza war began in October last year, the total number of Syrians killed in Lebanon has reached 34, including eight women and three children, while injuries total 18, according to the war monitor.
Tension along the Israel-Lebanon border has escalated sharply following communications devices explosions in Lebanon earlier this week that killed 37 and injured 2,931.
These developments marked the latest escalation of ongoing conflict on the Israel-Lebanon border that began on Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel to show support for Hamas in the Gaza Strip, prompting Israel’s retaliatory artillery fire and airstrikes into southeastern Lebanon. The conflict has already caused heavy casualties and displaced tens of thousands on both sides. ■