Bombing comes an hour after Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed a ‘strong’ response to Hezbollah’s action

Israel has carried out a series of airstrikes in the Nabatieh district, south Lebanon, in response to Hezbollah rocket fire near a watchtower, in the deadliest attacks since a ceasefire came into effect last week.

The Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, promised there would be a strong response to Hezbollah’s attack, and the Israeli military later said it had “struck Hezbollah terrorists, dozens of launchers, and terrorist infrastructure throughout Lebanon”.

Under-resourced army has job of ensuring Hezbollah’s compliance with truce while defending national territory

Mohammed Bzeeh spent the first hours of the ceasefire cleaning. After the Hezbollah-Israel agreement brought 13 months of fighting to a close last Wednesday, Bzeeh and his family arrived at their village of Zibqin in southern Lebanon to find their home ruined by an Israeli airstrike.

Bzeeh immediately set to work, the wiry 18-year-old hefting piles of concrete and metal scrap off his driveway using a rusty shovel. His family watched as he worked, overlooking the street that they had left two months earlier, now lined by the burnt-out husks of their neighbours’ homes.

Residents of Nabatieh say they do not expect the government to help and have set to work clearing the rubble

For two months, the only sounds in Nabatieh were the buzzing of an Israeli drone overhead and the dull thump of distant airstrikes. The day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came into effect, the drone was gone and southern Lebanon’s second largest city was filled with the sound of hammering and the clang of excavator buckets lifting rubble from blocked streets.

“We started repairs this morning, why would we wait? We have to stand on our own two feet,” said Wafiq Jaber, the owner of al-Sharq sweet shop in Nabatieh, on Thursday. He had watched six weeks earlier on his wifi-enabled cameras as Israeli bombs fell on one building after another until suddenly the footage cut and he knew his shop had been hit.

Reports of cars heading south inside Lebanon despite Israeli army warning displaced residents not to return home immediately

• Live updates: Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire comes into effect

A highly anticipated ceasefire aimed at ending the 14-month-old war between Israel and Hezbollah officially came into effect early on Wednesday morning, hours after Joe Biden hailed the “historic” moment.

The ceasefire officially began at 0200 GMT – 4am in Lebanon – after the heaviest day of raids on Beirut, including a series of strikes in the city’s centre, since Israel stepped up its air campaign in Lebanon in late September before sending in ground troops.

Airstrikes on Beirut and southern Lebanon some of the war’s heaviest to date, killing at least three people

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Israel has launched some of the heaviest airstrikes to date on Beirut, the Lebanese capital, before an expected ceasefire in its war with Hezbollah.

The Israeli military began attacking areas of Beirut dominated by the Lebanese militia early on Tuesday before issuing a flurry of 20 evacuation calls – its widest warning to civilians since hostilities escalated into full-blown war in late September.