The IDF said it struck Friday a compound used by Hamas operatives in the area of the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh near Sidon in southern Lebanon. According to the military, the site had recently been used to prepare attacks against Israeli forces operating in Lebanon and to conduct training aimed at advancing various terror plots against the IDF and the State of Israel. Lebanese reports said three people were killed and 12 wounded in the strike.
“The infrastructure that was struck was embedded in the heart of a civilian population, cynically exploiting village residents to advance the organization’s terror objectives and using them as human shields,” the IDF said. “The activity of the operatives at the compound constituted a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon and posed a threat to the State of Israel.”
Footage of the strikes
(Video: IDF)
Lebanese footage of the strikes
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that two missiles hit a building that had previously been used by the Joint Palestinian Security Forces operating in refugee camps in Lebanon and had “recently been rented by a certain party to serve as a kitchen for distributing food portions.”
According to the report, the targeted building and nearby structures were damaged. A Palestinian source told Lebanon’s LBCI that a Hamas office in Ain al-Hilweh was struck and that there were casualties.
Lebanese media reported Monday on a timeline set by the Lebanese army to complete the second phase of consolidating weapons in the country’s south. According to army commander Gen. Rodolphe Haykal, disarming Hezbollah north of the Litani River will take four to eight months. Haykal made the remarks while presenting the Lebanese government with the monthly report on the weapons consolidation plan, and one report said an extension is also possible.
Lebanese military sources told the Qatari newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that Haykal “did not set a deadline for consolidating weapons north of the Litani but stressed the need to complete it quickly.” The comments came about a month after the Lebanese army announced it had completed the process of dismantling Hezbollah’s weapons south of the Litani, a claim Israel rejected.