A Syrian man and his twelve-year-old daughter were killed in southern Lebanon on Saturday by a sequence of three Israeli drone strikes, in the deadliest day for civilians in the country since the Lebanon-Israel ceasefire took effect on April 17. The Lebanese health ministry, which named the dead as Mahmoud Hamdan and his daughter Layan, said the family had been visiting relatives in a village outside Nabatieh.
The first strike landed in front of the motorcycle the pair were riding but missed both. The father slowed to assess the damage and was killed by a second drone-launched munition that hit the bike directly. After the daughter, who had been thrown clear, walked roughly one hundred metres along the road, a third strike was directed at her position; she was taken to Sayyed al-Shuhada hospital in critical condition and died of her wounds in the early afternoon.
A separate Israeli operation struck two vehicles on the coastal highway south of Beirut near the seaside town of Saadiyat, some seventy kilometres north of the Israeli border, late in the morning. Lebanese state media reported that the targets had been driving in convoy in the direction of the southern suburbs and that at least two of the four occupants had been killed; the Israeli army said it had hit "Hezbollah operatives" without providing further detail.
The strikes are the most aggressive Israeli action in Lebanon since President Donald Trump announced a ten-day truce on April 16 between Israel and the Lebanese state. They come five days before a third round of direct negotiations is due to open in Washington on May 14, with the Lebanese envoy Simon Karam set to lead the Beirut delegation and the Israeli strategic-affairs minister Ron Dermer leading the Israeli side.
President Joseph Aoun condemned the strikes in a written statement and said he had instructed Lebanon's ambassador to Washington to seek an "immediate clarification" from the State Department. Caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati called the killing of the daughter an "execution" and said it would "weigh on the negotiating table next week". Hezbollah's political wing said the strikes "amounted to a unilateral collapse of the truce".
The Israel Defence Forces, which has not in recent weeks claimed responsibility for individual strikes in southern Lebanon, said in an evening statement that operations had been conducted against "imminent threats" but did not address either the death of the twelve-year-old or the Saadiyat operation. Israeli media reports cited unnamed military officials as saying that the targeted father had been suspected of moving funds for a Hezbollah procurement cell.