Lebanese sources say 10 civilians including four children killed in fiercest exchanges since Hamas’s 7 October attack

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The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate for Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon that killed three of its fighters and 10 other people, including four children.

A strike on the city of Nabatiyeh late on Wednesday killed seven civilians, including two children, and three members of Hezbollah, sources in Lebanon said. It followed an earlier attack that killed a woman and her two children in the village of Souaneh at the boundary between the two countries.

Cross-border rocket fire raises fears of a broader conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group

Eleven civilians, including six children, have been killed by Israeli strikes on villages across southern Lebanon, a hospital director and local security sources said, while the Israeli army said it lost a soldier in cross-border rocket fire.

While the rocket attack was not immediately claimed, the exchanges of fire – and the worst single-day civilian death toll in Lebanon since cross-border hostilities began in October – raised fears of a broader conflict between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah.