Israeli aircraft struck the Ali Taher Ridge overnight and the town of Deir al Zahrani on Saturday morning. Local Lebanese authorities put the toll from the earlier strikes at 11, among them three children and two women, and Lebanese media reported two killed at Deir al Zahrani. Residents of the Upper Galilee were told to expect explosions from the activity.
The trigger was an attack on Friday at about 2:30 in the morning, when a Hezbollah explosive drone seriously wounded three soldiers of Yahalom, the combat engineering unit, near the same ridge. The military says it killed Ali Muhammad Fakhr al Din, known as Abu Hassan Alaa, a senior commander in Hezbollah's Badr regional division, and earlier announced killing Ali Samir Al Haj Hassan, a Radwan Force battalion commander, at Ansar. It has not confirmed the overnight strikes.
Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on Sunday morning that no score on any front will remain unsettled and that Israel will forcefully defend its soldiers and citizens. The Prime Minister's Office said Hezbollah violated the ceasefire by attacking soldiers, and that only later did the army learn Hezbollah had deliberately placed civilians in the military compound.
Lebanon's president Joseph Aoun called the strikes a clear message ahead of the American sponsored negotiations, and condemned what he described as repeated violations of the framework agreement. Hezbollah said the strikes would be met with an appropriate response and urged an end to what it called humiliating negotiations with Israel. The framework was announced on 26 June, Hezbollah has refused to disarm under it, and the next round is expected in Rome in early September. Each side is now arguing that the other has already broken the thing they are about to negotiate over.