Israeli air strikes have killed 41 people in Lebanon in 24 hours, Lebanon's health ministry said, in the deadliest stretch of a new escalation that has continued despite a ceasefire meant to halt the fighting.

Strikes on Saturday killed at least 10 people, taking the overall death toll since hostilities escalated on 2 March to 2,659, with 8,183 others injured, the ministry said. The figures were reported by Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA), quoting the ministry's emergency operations centre.

According to the NNA, three people were killed in an Israeli attack on the town of Shoukine in the Nabatieh district. An earlier attack on a car in the village of Kfar Dajjal killed two people, three others were killed when a home was hit in the village of Lwaizeh, and a strike on the village of Shoukin killed two more. Israeli forces also carried out an air strike near the al-Quds roundabout in the city of Nabatieh, and warplanes attacked the town of Siddiqine in the Tyre district.

Three days of heavy losses

Saturday's deaths followed two days of heavy losses. At least 12 people were killed on Friday, including a child, after Israeli forces struck the town of Habboush in the Nabatieh district, killing eight people and wounding at least eight others, including another child and a woman. A further four people were reported killed in other attacks near Tyre and Nabatieh, and houses, a convent and a school were demolished on Friday, according to the NNA.

Israel had issued a forced evacuation order to residents of Habboush, which lies north of the Litani River, before the strike. On Thursday, at least 28 people were reported killed across southern Lebanon. In the municipality of Jebchit, four people were killed and nine wounded in an attack that destroyed a residential building. Two people were killed in Qana, a Lebanese soldier and members of his family were killed in an air raid on their home in Kfar Rumman, and six people were killed by a drone attack near the cemetery in Zebdine.

The pattern continued through the weekend. Lebanon's NNA reported demolition operations and artillery shelling in southern Lebanon on Saturday, including a demolition operation in Bani Hayyan, search operations in Khiam, and shelling around Wadi al-Hujair, Baraachit and Wadi Zibqin. On Friday evening, Israeli artillery targeted the al-Arayesh area between Haris and Hadatha, and forces fired heavy machine guns towards the outskirts of Mansouri and Bayut al-Sayyad, south of Tyre.

A ceasefire in name only

Israel says its attacks target the pro-Iran Lebanese group Hezbollah, but many of those killed have been civilians, and the dead in recent days have included children, soldiers and paramedics. More than one million people in Lebanon have been registered as displaced since the outbreak of the war.

Israel's military has also issued new displacement orders covering more than 10 villages and towns, including several in the Nabatieh district north of the Litani River, telling residents to leave their homes immediately and move at least 1,000 metres into open areas. The NNA later reported strikes on towns not mentioned in the order.

The ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon began on 17 April and was later extended until mid-May, but it has been violated repeatedly. Al Jazeera's correspondent in Beirut described it as a diplomatic construct, saying the reality in the south was that the war continued and was expanding. China's envoy to the United Nations, Fu Cong, told reporters there was no real ceasefire in place, only a lesser fire, and that it was incumbent on Israel to stop the bombardment.

Hezbollah, for its part, pledged on Friday to continue attacks on Israeli forces inside Lebanese territory, saying it had targeted gatherings of soldiers and vehicles in several front-line towns, and that three Israeli soldiers had been killed. The latest war between Israel and Hezbollah began on 2 March, when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel two days after the United States and Israel attacked its main backer, Iran. With the death toll still climbing and evacuation orders widening, the truce that was supposed to contain the conflict is under greater strain than at any point since it was agreed.

[Source: Al Jazeera](https://aljazeeranews-mggx1uo47w.edgeone.app/news/2026/5/2/israeli-air-strikes-kill-10-people-in-southern-lebanon) | [Source: EuropeSays](https://www.europesays.com/turkiye/70030/)