JIBSHIT: Two men were killed in south Lebanon on Sunday, one by Israeli fire and the other by an explosive remnant of war, as they took part in the annual olive harvest, according to state media and local officials.
South Lebanon has been the scene of two wars since 2023 between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, and Israeli troops still occupy a band of territory 10 kilometers wide running along the border.
The official National News Agency said one of the men was killed in Yater, in Bint Jbeil district, when Israeli “shelling targeted the outskirts of the town while he was inspecting his land and olive harvest.”
The Lebanese army blamed Israeli tank fire and called the ongoing attacks “a flagrant breach of existing agreements.”
Afterwards, the Yater municipality urged residents “to avoid the outskirts of the town and refrain from crossing the earthen barrier separating some unsafe neighborhoods” for fear of Israeli attacks.
In the village of Froun, in the same district, the NNA reported that “a foreign object” left over from previous Israeli operations exploded and killed an engineer as he and others tended their trees.
The engineer had come down from Beirut, where he lives, for the harvest, Froun mayor Hassan Bazzi told AFP.
The incident prompted local residents to call off the harvest and wait for “the Lebanese army to complete the decontamination of the village,” Bazzi said.
Since a framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel was struck in June, the violence in the south has diminished but not stopped.
Israel continues to carry out sporadic strikes and demolitions in and around the territory it occupies, while Hezbollah refuses to submit to government plans to disarm it.
About eight kilometers away, in Jibshit, volunteers from the north came to help locals with the harvest in a show of solidarity.
“From north to south, one people and one land,” said organizer Ahmad Chahhal.
As workers swatted at branches to make the olives fall, an AFP photographer saw drones and heard fighter jets overhead, and explosions could be heard in the distance.
Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war in early March by launching attacks against Israel in support of its backer Iran. Israel responded with an intense bombing campaign and a ground invasion.
The framework deal between Israel and Lebanon involves Hezbollah’s disarmament, a gradual Israeli withdrawal and the deployment of the Lebanese army to the region.