Five people were killed in Lebanon when Israeli soldiers crossed the Litani river Israel attacks Lebanon News

At least five people have been killed in Israeli planes are flying targeting southern towns Lebanonwhile the Lebanese and Israeli military delegations are preparing to discuss security at the Pentagon.

The move came on Friday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces had crossed the Litani River into Lebanon, which runs about 30 kilometers north of their shared border.

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Israel’s latest military operation began despite a “ceasefire” that began on April 17, and was extended for 45 days on May 17 following indirect talks with the United States.

Israel-Lebanon talks

At Pentagon talks later on Friday, Lebanon wants Israel to stop the ongoing attacks, which it has said to encourage in recent days.

The Lebanese delegation includes six officers, led by the army chief, Georges Rizkallah.

On the Israeli side, Brigadier General Amichai Levin, head of the army’s command and control division, is in Washington for the talks, according to an Israeli military spokesman.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that ending the war with Israel is important. A statement from his office said that during the phone call, Aoun “stressed the need to do everything possible to end the war, seeing it as a necessary step towards any next step”.

Rubio reiterated the US administration’s commitment to consolidating the results of previous diplomatic talks between Israel and Lebanon in Washington, and expressed its support for the stability, independence and self-government of Lebanon, the statement added.

‘Eleven children killed, injured every 24 hours’

In Friday’s attacks in southern Lebanon, four people were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the city of Abbasiyeh, near the city of Tyre. Another person was killed in a separate attack in Deir Qanoun al-Nahr, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported.

The NNA said that the Israeli army carried out new attacks in the towns of al-Baisariyah, as-Sarafand and Khirbet Selm. Another thing that was targeted was a motorcycle on the road near al-Abbassieh that was causing injury.

Fifteen children have been killed in Lebanon and 62 injured in the past seven days, the United Nations said.

The UN children’s agency UNICEF said the figures were “shocking”, and stressed that, under international humanitarian law, children must always be protected during times of war.

“According to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health, 77 children have been reported killed or injured in the last week alone,” UNICEF spokesman Ricardo Pires told reporters in Geneva.

15 children were killed and 62 injured in 7 days. This is about 11 children every 24 hours. We understand that many of these children were affected by airstrikes in southern Lebanon.

A humanitarian tragedy

Several aid agencies fear they may have to leave southern Lebanon because of the ongoing violence.

Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have been forced from their homes by Israeli forces since March 2, and they need urgent help.

“If security worsens, we can leave some areas. There are red lines that we cannot cross for the safety of our groups,” Jeremy Ristord, with the medical NGO Doctors Without Borders, known for its French predecessor MSF, told Al Jazeera.

About 40 hospitals in the south have already been closed, he said.

“On top of that, the rescue teams are already working very hard to adapt their methods to deal with the security crisis,” said Ristord, noting that the rescuers. fear of “double whammy” and Israel.

“Sometimes they fail to even intervene.”

He said 126 security personnel had been killed and 310 injured in the fighting since March – “that’s four casualties a day”.

The Israeli army is ‘firing heavily’ on Hezbollah

Also on Friday, the Israeli army issued evacuation warnings in seven other towns in southern Lebanon, two of which are 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Israel.

The Israeli prime minister visited soldiers near the border, according to a video released by his office.

There, he said that Israel’s forces had crossed the Litan River in Lebanon and were advancing; and that they were also operating in Beirut and the Bekaa Valley as part of operations against Hezbollah across the Lebanese front.

“Netanyahu made a surprise visit to the Lebanese border on Friday, confirming that Israeli forces are now north of the Litani River; there has been a target to open fire on Israel … throughout the Nabatieh district,” Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto said.

The Israeli army has bypassed Hezbollah’s second line of defense, and is now “hard hitting” the army’s third line of defense”, Hitto added.