Israel-Hamas war latest: Israeli strike killed 2 people in southern Lebanon, Lebanese media say

Israeli strikes killed two people and injured three others in southern Lebanon early Monday, Lebanon’s state-run news agency said.

The report came as Israel mulls its response to a rocket attack from Lebanon over the weekend that killed 12 children and teenagers in a town in the Israel-controlled Golan Heights. Monday’s strikes did not appear to be Israel’s response to the deadly weekend attack but more routine fighting.

Lebanese state media said a Monday morning strike hit a motorcycle traveling close to the Lebanon-Israel border, killing two riders and injuring a child.

No more information about the dead or injured was immediately available.

Also Monday, two were injured in a separate strike in southern Lebanon, Lebanese state media reported.

Israeli military officials said only that the military had struck Hezbollah operatives and infrastructure but did not give more information.

Since Oct. 8, violence has flared across the border between Israeli troops and Hezbollah. Israel’s military says the weekend attack on Majdal Shams marked the deadliest attack on civilians since Oct. 7, raising fears of a broader regional war.

Here’s the latest:

BEIRUT — Monday saw a flurry of diplomatic activity in Lebanon ahead of anticipated Israeli retaliation to a strike that killed 12 children and teenagers in a town in the Israel-controlled Golan Heights.

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has held “intensive diplomatic contacts after the recent Israeli threats against Lebanon,” including a call with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who “renewed the call on all parties to exercise restraint to prevent escalation,” Mikati’s office said in a statement.

Lammy posted on social media site X that he had called Mikati “to express my concern at escalating tension and welcomed the Government of Lebanon’s statement urging for cessation of all violence.”

“We both agreed that widening of conflict in the region is in nobody’s interest,” he said.

Also on Monday, Hezbollah’s head of foreign relations, Ammar Moussawi, met with Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib, according to a Lebanese diplomat and a Hezbollah official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the matter.

The diplomatic official said there had also been a flurry of calls by Amos Hochstein, a senior advisor to U.S. President Joe Biden who frequently handles delicate negotiations in Lebanon, attempting to ensure that the Israeli retaliation and Hezbollah’s response would not spiral into an all-out war.

Israel has accused Hezbollah of firing the rocket that hit a soccer field in the town of Majdal Shams over the weekend. Hezbollah denied responsibility, a rare move by the militant group.

—Abby Sewell

MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights — Thousands of mourners laid to rest on Monday the 12th victim of a rocket strike from Lebanon that hit a soccer field in Israeli-controlled territory, an attack that risked pushing the region toward all-out war.

The body of 11-year-old Guevara Ibrahim was carried through the streets of the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights in a procession of people clad in black. Pictures of the smiling boy were hoisted up as his body, shrouded in white, was moved through the streets.

Ibrahim was one of 12 children and teens between the ages of 10 to 16 who were killed when a rocket struck a soccer field. It was the deadliest attack on Israel or Israeli-controlled territory since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.

The strike’s other victims were buried on Sunday but Ibrahim’s body was not immediately identified and he was initially considered missing, Israeli media reported.

Israel blamed Hezbollah for Saturday’s strike, but in an unusual move the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group denied involvement.

Israel is expected to retaliate and the region is bracing for the possibility of an escalation in the fighting.

Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging cross-border fire since Oct. 8, a day after Hamas attacked southern Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza.

CAIRO — Officials from Egypt and Hamas said Monday that mediators negotiating a Gaza cease-fire deal were still working to iron out sticking points.

The officials, who have direct knowledge of the negotiations, said the contentious points include Israeli demands to maintain a presence in a strip of land on the Gaza-Egypt border known as the Philadelphi corridor, as well as along a highway separating Gaza’s south and north.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the sensitive talks with the media.

They said Israel refuses to leave the area between Egypt and Gaza during the cease-fire. They said Israel has linked its forces’ departure from the border corridor to installing underground sensors and an underground wall to monitor any future efforts by Hamas to build tunnels or smuggle weapons. Officials in Israel did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Israel says Hamas uses tunnels that pass under the corridor to smuggle weapons, although Egypt denies the allegation and says it destroyed many in an earlier crackdown.

Israel’s military seized control of the Philadelphi corridor in early May along with the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza when it began its invasion of Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah.

The Egyptian official said no agreement has been reached on the corridor and the reopening of Rafah, adding that direct negotiations between Egypt and Israel were continuing to find a compromise.

The Hamas official, meanwhile, rejected Israel’s demands, including its desire to maintain Israeli troops along the highway halving Gaza, which is meant to vet Palestinians returning to their homes in northern Gaza and weed out any militants.

The Hamas official said the group will hand its written response to Qatar and Egypt within the coming days.

Both officials said Hamas still wants “written guarantees” from mediators that negotiations will continue during the first phase of the cease-fire to establish a permanent truce.

CIA director William Burns, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani and Egypt’s head of intelligence Abbas Kamel met Sunday with Mossad chief David Barnea in Rome to discuss Israel’s latest demands.

—Samy Magdy

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Middle East is bracing for a potential flare-up in violence after Israeli authorities said a rocket from Lebanon struck a soccer field in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, killing 12 children and teens in what the military called the deadliest attack on civilians since Oct. 7.

Saturday’s strike raised fears of a broader regional war between Israel and Hezbollah, which in a rare move denied it was responsible.

The White House National Security Council said it was speaking with Israeli and Lebanese counterparts and working on a diplomatic solution to “end all attacks once and for all” in the border area between Israel and Lebanon.

The Israeli military said it struck a number of targets inside Lebanon overnight into Sunday, though their intensity was similar to months of cross-border fighting between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah. Hezbollah said it also carried out strikes. There were no immediate reports of casualties.