Israeli Airstrike Kills 13 at Palestinian Refugee Camp in Lebanon Amid Ongoing Tensions

Israeli army stated that it will continue to act against Hamas wherever the work.

An Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon on Tuesday killed 13 people and wounded several others, according to state media and government officials. This was the deadliest strike on Lebanon since a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war a year ago.

The drone strike targeted a car in the parking lot of a mosque in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp near the coastal city of Sidon, reported the state-run National News Agency. The Lebanese Health Ministry confirmed that 13 people were killed and several others wounded in the airstrike, without providing further details.

Hamas fighters in the area blocked journalists from accessing the scene, while ambulances rushed to evacuate the wounded and the dead.

The Israeli military claimed it struck a Hamas training compound that was being used to prepare an attack against Israel and its army. It further stated that the Israeli army would continue to act against Hamas wherever the group operates.

Hamas condemned the attack in a statement, claiming 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 numerous 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 January 2, 2024. Several other Hamas officials have been killed in strikes since then.

Hamas led the October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel that killed approximately 1,200 people. This attack triggered Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip that killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

A day after the Israel-Hamas war began, Hezbollah started firing rockets toward Israeli posts along the border. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon, and the conflict escalated into a full-blown war in late September 2024.

This war, the most recent of several conflicts involving Hezbollah over the past four decades, killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians, and caused an estimated $11 billion worth of destruction, according to the World Bank. In Israel, 127 people died, including 80 soldiers.

The war ended in late November 2024 with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire. Since then, Israel has conducted numerous airstrikes in Lebanon, claiming that Hezbollah is attempting to rebuild its capabilities.

Lebanon's Health Ministry has reported more than 270 people killed and around 850 wounded by Israeli military actions since the ceasefire.