Israel strikes in southern Lebanon kill 10 people as a Hezbollah drone
wounds 2 Israeli soldiers
[May 02, 2026]
By BASSAM HATOUM and BASSEM MROUE
TYRE, Lebanon (AP) — Israel carried out several airstrikes Friday on
southern Lebanon that killed at least 10 people, while the militant
Hezbollah group said it fired rockets and drones at northern Israel
where two soldiers were wounded.
Israel’s military and Hezbollah kept up their attacks despite a
ceasefire in place since April 17.
Israel’s military on Friday afternoon urged residents of the Lebanese
village of Habboush near the southern city of Nabatiyeh to evacuate,
warning that those close to Hezbollah’s facilities would be in danger.
An airstrike on Habboush that occurred around the time of the warning
killed six people, including a woman and a child, and wounded eight, the
Health Ministry said.
The state-run National News Agency reported that four people were killed
in strikes on three other southern villages.
By Friday afternoon, Hezbollah had issued six statements saying it
launched drones and rockets at Israeli military positions.
The Israeli military confirmed that Hezbollah launched an explosive
drone that fell in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon. Israeli
media reported that a drone strike near Margaliot in northern Israel
caused a fire, and that two soldiers were lightly wounded in a separate
Hezbollah drone impact in the area.
Friday’s exchanges came after paramedics in southern Lebanon recovered
the bodies of five people, including a man and his three sons, from
under rubble in the village of Kfar Rumman, also near Nabatiyeh, a day
after they were killed.
National News Agency reported that the five were killed in an airstrike
late Thursday on Kfar Rumman. The agency identified those whose bodies
were recovered as Malek Hamza and his sons, Ali, Fadel and Hamza. It
said the strike also killed a Lebanese soldier. The Lebanese army
confirmed that a soldier, Ali Jaber, was killed in the strike.
Damaged homes and overburdened hospitals
Despite the war, residents have continued to return to homes in southern
Lebanon after being displaced for weeks because of the hostilities.
One of them was Umm Ali Khodor, whose apartment in the southern port
city of Tyre was damaged during the previous Israel-Hezbollah war in
2024 and again in the current conflict.
“We were displaced, we rented a house, but as you know the situation is
very difficult,” the woman said. “We could not continue so we returned
to our home.”
At Jabal Aamel hospital in Tyre, one of the few in the area that are
still functioning, director Wael Mroueh said many of the wounded they
are treating are people who initially fled but decided to return and
take their chances in areas facing periodic bombardment.
The dynamic was “different from all the previous wars,” he said. Many
residents left the villages surrounding Tyre in the early days of the
war, "but a large number did not find places and came back.”
Many of the hospital’s staff are also displaced, and the medical
facility is hosting them and their families to ensure that it can
continue to operate. The hospital has enough food and supplies to last
for a month, Mroueh said, and is relying on international organizations
to maintain its supply chain.
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Sanaa Khalil, 35, a Syrian farmer who lost her two legs in the past
days by an Israeli strike while she was working at a banana
plantation, lies on a bed at a hospital in the southern port city of
Tyre, Lebanon, Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Official condemns targeting of Red Cross
Also Friday, a senior official with the International Federation of
Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies condemned the targeting of Red
Cross volunteers during the Israel-Hezbollah war.
IFRC Under Secretary General for National Society Development and
Coordination Xavier Castellanos Mosquera, who was visiting Lebanon,
said that two Lebanese Red Cross volunteers have been killed and 18
others wounded by Israeli strikes. More than 100 health workers in
total have been killed in Lebanon during the war, according to the
country’s health ministry.
Mosquera told The Associate Press that Red Cross volunteers in
southern Lebanon have described hugging each other before departing
on a call “because they don’t know if they will return.”
He added that he had seen video showing “ambulances that were hit by
bullets” while trying to rescue journalist Amal Khalil, who was
buried in rubble when an Israeli strike hit a building where she was
sheltering in southern Lebanon last month. Her body was pulled from
the rubble hours later when rescuers were able to reach the scene.
The IFRC official also recently visited Iran, where he said key
facilities of the Iranian Red Crescent Society had been targeted.
Two chemical plants that had been their main providers of raw
materials to produce plastic syringes and dialysis components were
struck and destroyed. Another strike hit close to a Red Crescent
rehabilitation center in Tehran that served children, elderly people
and people with disabilities, causing damage.
Israel has denied that it deliberately targets health facilities and
emergency workers.
The latest war between Israel and Hezbollah began on March 2, when
Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel two days after the
United States and Israel launched a war on its main backer, Iran.
Israel has since carried out hundreds of airstrikes and launched a
ground invasion of southern Lebanon, capturing dozens of towns and
villages along the border.
Since then Lebanon and Israel have held their first direct talks in
more than three decades. The two countries have formally been in a
state of war since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.
A 10-day ceasefire declared in Washington went into effect on April
17. The ceasefire was later extended by three weeks.
The Health Ministry said Friday that the war’s death toll reached
2,618 while 8,094 were wounded.
___
Mroue reported from Beirut. Associated Press journalist Koral Said
in Abu Snan, Israel, and Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this
report.
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