Israeli strikes kill 30 in Lebanon as French soldier dies in accidental shooting
Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed at least 30 people in the past 24 hours, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Wednesday, as cross-border violence escalated and a French soldier died in an accidental shooting during a training exercise near Beirut.
The ministry reported that Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) attacks across southern Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday had left 30 dead and 92 wounded, bringing the overall toll since March 2nd to 3,696 killed and 11,413 injured . The strikes followed an IDF statement that a suspected Hezbollah drone had been intercepted over southern Lebanon, triggering sirens in the border town of Shlomi .
Meanwhile, in a separate incident, a 21-year-old French soldier deployed in Lebanon as part of a military partnership with Lebanese armed forces was killed on Wednesday when he was accidentally shot during a training exercise, France’s defence ministry confirmed. The soldier, whose identity has not been released, was struck “during the preparatory phase of a training session” near Beirut .
The surge in violence comes as footage emerged contradicting Israel’s account of a fatal shooting in the occupied West Bank last Friday, when troops killed a seven-month-old Palestinian baby. Video verified by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem shows the family’s car slowing to a stop near a military post in Hebron’s Tel Rumeida district before soldiers opened fire. The infant, Sam Fahd Abu Haikal, was shot in the head while in his mother’s arms; his parents were also wounded. The family had complied with an order to halt, the footage indicates .
The IDF had claimed its troops fired after perceiving a vehicle accelerating toward them, but the video shows the car stationary when shots were fired. Fahed Abu Haikal, the baby’s father, told Israeli media the soldiers gave no warning before opening fire. “I stopped as ordered, and then they just shot at the car,” he said. “A seven-month-old baby murdered in cold blood. He didn’t deserve this.”
The incident has drawn condemnation from Palestinian authorities and international observers, coming amid a broader pattern of violence in the West Bank and Gaza, where Israeli attacks killed three more Palestinians on Tuesday, raising the Gaza death toll since October 2023 to 72,991 despite a ceasefire that has seen repeated violations .




