BEIRUT/JERUSALEM, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- At least nine people were killed and 12 others injured on Saturday in two separate Israeli airstrikes on the Nabatieh region in southern Lebanon, according to local media reports and health authorities.
Seven people were killed and three others injured early Saturday in an Israeli airstrike on a building on the outskirts of Ansar in the southern Nabatieh Governorate, Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported.
Later on the day, another Israeli airstrike on Deir Al Zahrani in the Nabatieh district killed at least two people and wounded nine others, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
Rescue teams are working to clear the rubble, retrieve the bodies and transport the injured to hospitals, according to the NNA report.
The Israeli army has stepped up its attacks on southern Lebanon from around 3 a.m. local time Saturday (0000 GMT), carrying out a series of airstrikes on Ali al-Taher Hill in Nabatieh, the NNA said.
It added that the attacks were accompanied by artillery shelling with phosphorus munitions targeting the wooded area and the high ground of Ali al-Taher Hill.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Saturday that it had struck Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon in response to the latter's activity against Israeli forces on the Ali al-Taher Hill, which is within the "security zone" held by the Israeli military.
In response to the Israeli claims, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said that the seven people killed in the strike on Ansar were not "military infrastructure," and that "the women and children who were killed are not military targets."
"Israel must halt this escalation," he said, adding that the escalation was "extremely dangerous and undermines efforts to consolidate stability in the south."
Earlier this month, Israeli and Lebanese officials reportedly finished three days of negotiations in Rome aimed at advancing security arrangements along their border and implementing a framework agreement reached in Washington in late June. The talks, opposed by Hezbollah, were the seventh round of negotiations between the two sides. ■
