An Israeli strike has severed the last bridge linking southern Lebanon to the rest of the country, a senior Lebanese security official told Reuters on Thursday.
The official said the strike “shattered” the bridge and left no possibility of repairing it, cutting off the last road crossing between the war-battered south and the rest of Lebanon.
The destruction deepens the isolation of communities in southern Lebanon already displaced by months of cross-border fighting, and complicates humanitarian access to populations cut off by the campaign. It follows a wave of Israeli strikes across the south in recent days that have killed hundreds and prompted Lebanon into first direct talks with Israel in Washington earlier this week.
Details on casualties from Thursday’s strike were not immediately available. The Israeli military did not immediately comment.
The escalation comes even as a fragile US-Iran ceasefire, brokered through Pakistan on April 8, has remained nominally in force, though Iran and its allies have repeatedly warned that continued Israeli operations in Lebanon threaten the wider truce.
