(Reuters) – Israeli military said on Sunday it killed Hezbollah fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades and struck a rocket launcher in the Nabatieh area of southern Lebanon to remove threats to its soldiers.
The Israeli military said it struck the structure from which the fighters operated and dismantled a rocket launcher that posed a threat.
Earlier, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem rejected a US-brokered security agreement between Lebanon and Israel on Saturday a day after it was signed, describing it as a surrender to Israel.
In the latest example of ongoing hostilities despite repeated ceasefires and agreements, Israel launched a drone strike in Lebanon's south on Saturday.
More than a million Lebanese have been driven from their homes by a conflict that has run in parallel with the wider Iran war. Hezbollah and Iran say Washington pledged to end hostilities in Lebanon as part of its memorandum of understanding signed two weeks ago to end the wider war.
The framework agreed on Friday provides for a phased Israeli withdrawal from some parts of southern Lebanon, alongside the deployment of the Lebanese army. But Israeli forces would be permitted to remain in an expanded security zone for the time being.
In a statement, Qassem called it "null and void", and accused the Lebanese government of making unilateral concessions and undermining Lebanon's sovereignty.
He criticised provisions linking Israel's withdrawal to Hezbollah's disarmament, saying they effectively legitimised Israel's military presence and crossed "all red lines".
The group would continue its armed resistance, he added: "We did not leave the battlefield in the most difficult circumstances, and we will not leave it."