Lebanese farmer killed as Israel steps up attacks across Lebanon

BEIRUT

A farmer was killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon on Thursday as Israel intensified its air campaign on the Arab country.

The state news agency NNA reported the fatality in the attack that targeted the village of Habbariyeh.

Meanwhile, a female correspondent for the local channel LBC TV narrowly survived an Israeli airstrike as she was covering developments in the southern town of Deir El Zahrani.

She was injured and her vehicle was damaged in the attack, NNA said.

Local media also reported Israeli strikes and artillery shelling in several southern towns, including Tayr Harfa, Zibqine, Jbal El Botm, Jebbayn, and Chihinein.

Separately, Israeli army forces demolished a mosque in the town of Yarine in southern Lebanon, NNA said.

Israel has launched an air campaign in Lebanon against what it claims are Hezbollah group targets in an escalation from a year of cross-border warfare between Israel and the Lebanese group since the start of Israel’s brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip last year.

More than 3,360 people have been killed, over 14,300 injured, and more than 1 million people displaced by Israeli attacks since last October, according to Lebanese health authorities.

Israel expanded the conflict by launching an incursion into southern Lebanon on Oct. 1.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio