An Israeli airstrike on a residential building in south Lebanon killed around 20 people on Saturday. The state news agency NNA said two of these were children. Five people were wounded too. The airstrike took place in the city of Nabatieh.
NNA said the victims were all Syrian citizens. The final toll of the strike is to be announced once the DNA tests determine the identity of the victims.
The Israeli military said the airstrike targeted a weapons depot used by Hezbollah militants.
This strike took place after ceasefire talks between Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and Israel in Doha paused on Friday. Negotiators are due to meet again next week.
Hezbollah later said in a statement that it had struck the Ayelet Hashahar Kibbutz in northern Israel in retaliation for the Nabatieh strike.
The Israeli military said that two soldiers were wounded in a rocket attack from Lebanon. A total of 55 rockets had been fired in the latest strikes from Lebanon.
The NNA also reported that an Israeli drone targeted a motorcycle in the Qadmous area east of Tyre in south Lebanon on Saturday. One person was injured in this. A security source said one person was killed in the motorcycle attack.
In the recent weeks, tensions have soared in the region. This came in after a rocket strike blamed on Hezbollah killed 12 children and teens in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israel offered a response with the killing of a top Hezbollah commander in the suburbs of Beirut.
Hezbollah is determined to retaliate against Israel, as is Iran, for the killing in Tehran of the political chief of the Palestinian Hamas group, Ismail Haniyeh.
(With inputs from Reuters)
