Israeli strikes on Kfar Rumman kill at least 11, including two children

Israeli strikes on the southern Lebanese town of Kfar Rumman killed at least 11 people early on 7 September, Lebanon's health ministry said. Two children and four women were among the dead in an attack on a residential building. A separate drone strike on a vehicle in the same town killed a medic and wounded two others, the ministry said. State news agency NNA had earlier put the building toll at nine, including two children, and the vehicle toll at two paramedics from the Amal movement's Risala Scouts.

Reuters, citing the ministry, reported 12 dead in the town including two children. NNA said one of the rescuers in the car was 18. The strikes came without an online evacuation warning from the Israeli military. The army did issue a warning before a separate strike that destroyed a building in nearby Deir al-Zahrani, which it called a Hezbollah facility used to launch an explosive drone.

The Israeli military said it had struck people transferring weapons in the Kfar Rumman area. It did not immediately answer questions about whether it knew children and medics were present and why no warning was posted for the town. Overnight strikes were also reported in Nabatieh and Arab Salim.

The Kfar Rumman attacks followed a day in which Lebanese authorities said Israeli strikes killed seven people and wounded 20 after Hezbollah flew two explosive drones at Israeli troops. Israel said last Thursday it had taken the Ali al-Taher ridge from Hezbollah. The group has not commented on that claim. A June ceasefire was supposed to halt the fighting. It has not.

Lebanon's health ministry says Israeli strikes have killed more than 4,300 people in Lebanon since 2 March. That running total is a ministry figure, not an international verification. It is the number Beirut now uses when it describes the year.

A relative of three of the dead, named Farhat in Reuters reporting, spoke at the hospital and asked what the target was. She said the building was hit as children were getting ready for school. NNA located the destroyed house as a three-storey residential building near Nabatieh.

Two facts sit side by side and do not cancel. The Israeli army says it was hitting weapons movers. The Lebanese health ministry says two children, four women and a medic are dead, and that no warning went out for that town. Investigators, if they are allowed in, will have to match munitions, aiming points and the passenger list in the scout vehicle. Until then the casualty list is the ministry's and the target list is the army's.

Nabatieh district is now the place where the June text is being rewritten by air. Each night without a warning and with a child in the rubble makes a return to the ceasefire terms harder to sell in Beirut and easier to sell in Jerusalem as unfinished work.