Israeli strikes kill at least 14 across southern Lebanon ahead of
Washington talks
[May 28, 2026]
By KAREEM CHEHAYEB
BEIRUT (AP) — The Israeli military early Thursday pounded Lebanon's
fourth-largest city, killing at least 14 people across the south of the
country in its ongoing military escalation against the Hezbollah group
ahead of crucial talks in Washington.
Among those killed in the flurry of strikes were five women and children
and a Lebanese soldier. Dozens of others were wounded, according to the
Lebanese Health Ministry and the state-run National News Agency.
An Israeli soldier meanwhile was killed in a Hezbollah drone attack in
northern Israel, the Israeli military said.
The intensification comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu announced an expansion in the Israeli military's attacks in
Lebanon, apparently sparked by Hezbollah's use of fiber-optic exploding
drones that have struck Israeli troops in Lebanon and reached some of
Israel's northern border towns.
Lebanese and Israeli military officials are set to hold their first
security talks on Friday in the U.S. capital. The talks have extended a
nominal ceasefire that went into effect April 17, although the attacks
have since intensified, while sparing the Lebanese capital Beirut.
Hezbollah has dismissed the talks and instead endorsed its key ally
Iran, which has made ending the war in Lebanon a condition for its own
talks with Washington brokered by Pakistan.
Before the attacks on Thursday, Israeli military Arabic spokesperson
Avichay Adraee issued warnings to eight buildings in the coastal city of
Tyre along the Mediterranean and surrounding neighborhoods. Many people
have fled the area.
Further north in the city of Sidon, an Israeli drone struck an apartment
building where some displaced families lived, killing five people and
wounding 21 others, among them five children. Among the killed was
Hossan Zeidan who once was a correspondent for Iran's Arabic-language
al-Aalam television.
Mohammad Al-Gharbi, who lived across the street from the building in
Sidon, woke to the sound of the explosion.
“I was in my room when part of the wall and shattered glass fell on me,
and everything was thrown into chaos,” he said. “This building that was
hit had six apartments occupied by poor families who had fled from the
south to escape the attacks there, only to be hit here.”
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People gather outside a destroyed apartment that was hit in an
Israeli airstrike in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon,
Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
In the nearby coastal town of Adloun, an Israeli drone struck a car
with a family that was fleeing, killing six people, of which four
were two children and their parents, the Lebanese Health Ministry
said. Another drone strike that came without warning killed two
people on a motorcycle near Tyre. The target of the attack was not
immediately clear, NNA reported.
Elsewhere near the city of Nabatiyeh, the Lebanese military said a
soldier was killed in an Israeli drone strike while he was driving
his motorcycle.
The Israeli military said Thursday that a soldier in northern Israel
was killed in a Hezbollah drone attack and two reservists were
wounded.
Hezbollah has claimed dozens of drone and rocket attacks that it
says targeted Israeli troops in southern Lebanon and northern
Israel. The group said Thursday it has launched several attacks on
Israeli troops and tanks that have crossed the Litani River into the
town of Zawtar al-Sharqieh near Nabatiyeh, as close-range fighting
continues.
Over 1 million people in Lebanon have been displaced by the war
between Israel and Hezbollah, which was sparked when Hezbollah fired
rockets into northern Israel on March 2 in solidarity with Iran, two
days after the Iran war began.
At least 3,269 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since the
start of the war, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, with
over 9,800 wounded.
According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 23 Israeli soldiers and a
defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon and
two civilians have been killed in northern Israel, the vast majority
by drones.
___
Associated Press journalists Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Natalie
Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, contributed to this report.
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