BEIRUT8mbets, Lebanon — The Lebanese health ministry said an Israeli air strike on the south on Saturday killed 10 Syrians, as the Israeli military reported hitting weapons stores of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.
The death toll from the strike in the Wadi al-Kafur area of Nabatieh is one of the heaviest since Hezbollah began exchanging near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces after the Gaza war erupted last October.
Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators have been trying to broker a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas, which diplomats say could help to avert a wider war in which Lebanon would be on the front line.
The dead in the latest strike included "a woman and her two children," the health ministry said in a statement.
A source close to Hezbollah in the Nabatieh area told AFP they were all civilians.
The Israeli military said the air force had struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility overnight "in the area of Nabatieh", some 12 kilometres (seven and a half miles) from the Israeli border.
Hezbollah said it responded with a volley of Katyusha rockets on Ayelet HaShahar, a community in northern Israel.
The Israeli military said there were no reports of any casualties but the 55 rockets sparked "multiple fires".
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati told British Foreign Minister David Lammy in a call there was a "need to pressure the Israeli enemy to stop its direct targeting of southern towns and villages".
"The current cycle of violence may lead to an escalation with dire consequences," Mikati told Lammy, according to a statement shared by his office.
The Syrian foreign ministry condemned the air strike, calling it "a blatant crime against Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and a threat to peace and security in the region".
Earlier, the Israeli military said a "projectile" fired from Lebanon had wounded two soldiers, one of them severely, near Misgav Am, a kibbutz community close to the border.
The killing of senior Hebollah commander Fuad Shukr in an Israeli air strike in late July, swiftly followed by that of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in an attack in Iran blamed on Israel, have prompted promises of retaliation and fears of a wider Middle East war.
In an effort to avert an escalation, Western and Arab diplomats have intensified efforts for a Gaza truce but ahead of fresh round of talks in Cairo next week, a deal remains elusive.
The cross-border violence has killed 581 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but including at least 128 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights8mbets, 22 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.