BEIRUT — Lebanese health officials confirmed Friday that six people were killed and at least fourteen others wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a building in the southern town of Khiam, hours after the United States announced it had secured an agreement to extend an existing ceasefire arrangement between Israel and Hezbollah by an additional 60 days, in what American officials described as a fragile but necessary diplomatic step to prevent a return to full-scale fighting.
The strike, which Lebanese civil defense workers said struck a building being used as a community shelter by displaced residents of surrounding villages, was one of the most lethal single incidents in southern Lebanon since a ceasefire brokered by the United States and France came into effect several months ago. Rescue teams worked through the morning to pull survivors from the rubble, officials said, and hospitals in the nearby city of Marjayoun received the wounded.
Israel’s military said in a statement that it had targeted a weapons depot operated by Hezbollah fighters who, it alleged, were using the building’s civilian function as cover. The military said it held Hezbollah fully responsible for any civilian casualties stemming from what it described as the deliberate embedding of military assets within populated areas. It did not comment on the timing of the strike in relation to the announced ceasefire extension.
Hezbollah denied storing weapons at the site and accused Israel of conducting the strike with the deliberate intent of undermining the diplomatic process. A senior spokesman for the group said the incident demonstrated that the existing ceasefire framework lacked any meaningful enforcement mechanism and called on the international guarantors of the deal — specifically the United States and France — to impose consequences for what he characterized as repeated Israeli violations.
The U.S. special envoy to the region, speaking to reporters at Beirut’s international airport following a day of intensive talks with Lebanese government officials and Hezbollah intermediaries, confirmed that Washington had reached agreement with both parties on the 60-day extension. He said the extension included a new provision for a joint monitoring body comprising representatives from Lebanon, Israel, the United States, France and the United Nations, which would be responsible for investigating alleged violations and reporting findings to the relevant parties within 72 hours of any reported incident.
“Both sides have reaffirmed their commitment to this framework,” the envoy said, while acknowledging that Friday’s strike had created immediate complications for the diplomatic effort. “We are seeking a full accounting from Israel of what occurred in Khiam, and we expect that accounting to be complete and transparent.”
Lebanon’s government issued a formal protest through diplomatic channels and summoned the charge d’affaires of a Western embassy seen as carrying influence in Tel Aviv to demand an explanation. Prime Minister Kareem Nassar, in a televised address, said Lebanon would pursue every available legal and multilateral avenue to hold those responsible accountable and warned that the Lebanese state’s patience with what he called systematic Israeli disregard for ceasefire terms was not unlimited.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said it had deployed additional observers to the Khiam area and would file a full incident report with the Security Council by the end of the week. The UN secretary-general’s spokesman expressed deep alarm at the reported civilian casualties and urged all parties to exercise maximum restraint. France and the United Kingdom jointly called for the new monitoring mechanism agreed to in the ceasefire extension to be activated immediately.
Security analysts who follow the Lebanon portfolio said Friday’s events exposed the fundamental contradiction at the heart of the arrangement. Dr. Lena Awad, a researcher at the Beirut Institute for Strategic Affairs, said that while neither Israel nor Hezbollah appeared to want a return to open warfare, the absence of genuine trust on either side meant that the situation remained acutely vulnerable to incident-driven escalation. “The ceasefire is real in the sense that full-scale hostilities have not resumed,” she said. “But it is not peace. It is a managed state of hostility, and events like today show just how narrow the margin for error actually is.”
In villages across southern Lebanon, residents reported sheltering in homes and basements following news of the Khiam strike, anxious that further attacks might follow. Humanitarian organizations working in the region said the incident had complicated the delivery of aid to communities still struggling to recover from earlier rounds of conflict. They called on the governments co-sponsoring the ceasefire extension to make clear to both parties that civilian infrastructure must be protected and that the monitoring mechanism agreed to in Friday’s deal must have genuine authority and resources to function effectively. As night fell across the south, the situation remained tense and unresolved.