Israeli airstrike on Palestinian refugee camp kills 13, says Lebanon

Thirteen people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, the Lebanese health ministry and state media have said.

The drone attack hit a car parked outside a mosque in the Ein el-Hilweh camp, near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, according to the state-run National News Agency.

The ministry said 13 people died and several others were injured.

It was the deadliest strike on Lebanon since a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war a year ago.

The Israeli military said it had struck militants operating in a Hamas training compound within the camp, alleging that Hamas was using the facility to carry out attacks on Israel.

Hamas condemned the strike, saying: "The claims and allegations of the Zionist occupation army that the targeted location is a 'training compound belonging to the movement' are pure fabrication and lies, aimed at justifying its criminal aggression."

It said the strike targeted an open sports field used by residents of the camp, adding there were no military establishments in refugee camps in Lebanon.

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The Israeli army said it would continue to act against the group wherever it operated.

Scores of officials from the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah and Palestinian factions have been killed over the past two years by Israeli airstrikes.

Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire in 2024 that required Hezbollah not to have any weapons in the south and for Israeli forces to fully withdraw from Lebanon.

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Hamas led the deadly attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people on 7 October 2023. Some 251 others were taken hostage.

In the war that followed, when Israel invaded the Gaza Strip, more than 69,000 Palestinians were killed, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.

The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of deaths were women and children.

(c) Sky News 2025: Israeli airstrike on Palestinian refugee camp kills 13, says Lebanon