BEIRUT: Israeli strikes on a southern Lebanese town killed 13 people, including two children, on Monday, in one of the deadliest days of bom­bardment in recent weeks.

Fears of a renewed Israeli military campaign are mou­nting in Lebanon after days of escalating strikes despite a June ceasefire that was meant to halt the fighting.

A woman, who said she was related to three of the dead, said one attack hit a residential building in Kfar Rumman as children were getting ready for school.

Reporters saw children’s schoolbooks strewn between chunks of concrete where the building once stood. Rescue workers had worked with heavy machinery throughout the morning to pull bodies out from underneath the rubble.

Over 250 children, nearly 400 women and 130 medics among 4,300 Lebanese killed since March

The strikes on Kfar Rumman came without an online evacuation warning from the Israeli military.

Eight-year-old Mustafa Farhat lost his grandparents and his mother in the strike, locals said. Rescue workers were still searching for his father several hours after the bombing, while the boy lay in hospital being treated for his wounds, they added.

One of his relatives, Mona Farhat, said it was their home that was hit in the run-up to school-time.

“What did they target? What is the goal they are targeting? Do they want us to leave our land? They are mistaken,” Farhat said at the hospital.

Lebanon’s health ministry said 12 people, including two children and four women, were killed in that attack on a residential building. State media had earlier said the attack happened after midnight.

A separate Israeli drone strike on a civilian vehicle in the town killed one medic, the health ministry said. Two other medics were wounded in the strike, the ministry added.

‘Uninvolved individuals’

Israel’s military said steps had been taken to mitigate harm “to uninvolved individuals, including the use of precise munitions and aerial surveillance”.

The military said it was reviewing a report that “uninvolved individuals” were har­m­ed as a result of the strikes.

It accused Hezbollah of launching two drones overnight towards Israeli troops operating near a strategic cluster of hills in south-eastern Lebanon.

Israel claimed last week that it had cleared Hezbollah fighters out of the ridge. In the days since, Israel has ramped up deadly strikes on towns to the ridge’s north and west where residents had returned after the June ceasefire.

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed more than 4,300 people since March 2, two days after the start of the US-Israeli bombing on Iran.

The dead include more than 250 children, nearly 400 women and more than 130 medics, according to the health ministry.

Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2026