12 killed as Israel says struck Radwan force 'training camps' in Bekaa

Israeli warplanes on Tuesday carried out strikes on the Wadi Faara area in northern Bekaa, one of them targeting a Syrian refugee camp, killing 12 people, including seven Syrians, and wounding eight others, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.

A security source told Reuters that the dead include five Hezbollah fighters.

A Lebanese security source meanwhile told Al-Jazeera that Wadi Faara was targeted by three Israeli airstrikes, with one of them hitting an excavator vehicle.

It was not immediately clear if the Wadi Faara raid was part of the 15 airstrikes that Israel carried out in the morning against alleged Hezbollah training camps in the Bekaa region.

Israel's military said in the morning that it was striking targets belonging to Hezbollah's elite Radwan force in eastern Lebanon, the latest attack despite a ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed group.

"Moments ago, Israeli Air Force fighter jets... began numerous strikes toward Hezbollah terror targets in the area of Bekaa, Lebanon," it said in a statement.

"The military compounds that were struck were used by the Hezbollah terrorist organization for training and exercising terrorists to plan and carry out terrorist attacks against (Israeli) troops and the State of Israel," it added.

The statement said an Israeli military operation in September 2024 had "eliminated" Radwan force commanders in Beirut's southern suburbs and southern Lebanon, but that "since then the unit has been operating to reestablish its capabilities."

"The storage of weapons and the activities of the Hezbollah terrorist organization at these sites constitute a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon and constitute a future threat to the State of Israel," it added.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the strikes were "a clear message" to Hezbollah and the Lebanese government "which is responsible for upholding the agreement."

"We will strike every terrorist and thwart any threat to the residents of the north and to the State of Israel -- and we will respond with maximum force against any attempt at rebuilding," he said in a statement from his ministry.

Israel has repeatedly bombed Lebanon despite a November ceasefire that sought to end over a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, including two months of all-out war that left the group severely weakened.

Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani river, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border, leaving the Lebanese Army and United Nations peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the region.

Israel was required to fully withdraw its troops from the country but has kept them in five places it deems strategic.