Israeli strike on south Lebanon kills 10 Syrians

The Lebanese health ministry said an Israeli air strike on the south yesterday killed 10 Syrians.The death toll from the strike in the Wadi al-Kafur area of Nabatieh is one of the heaviest since Hezbollah began exchanging near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces after the Gaza war erupted last October.Qatari, Egyptian and US mediators have been trying to broker a ceasefire in the Gaza war, which diplomats say could help to avert a wider war in which Lebanon would be on the front line.The dead in the latest strike included "a woman and her two children,” the health ministry said in a statement.A source close to Hezbollah in the Nabatieh area told AFP they were all civilians.The Israeli military said the air force had struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility overnight "in the area of Nabatieh”, some 12km from the Israeli border.Hezbollah said it responded with a volley of Katyusha rockets on Ayelet HaShahar, a community in northern Israel.The Israeli military said there were no reports of any casualties but the 55 rockets sparked "multiple fires”.Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati told British Foreign Minister David Lammy in a call there was a "need to pressure the Israeli enemy to stop its direct targeting of southern towns and villages”."The current cycle of violence may lead to an escalation with dire consequences,” Mikati told Lammy, according to a statement shared by his office.The Syrian foreign ministry condemned the air strike, calling it "a blatant crime against Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and a threat to peace and security in the region”.Earlier, the Israeli military said a "projectile” fired from Lebanon had wounded two soldiers, one of them severely, near Misgav Am, a kibbutz community close to the border.