5 dead in fresh Israeli strikes on south: Lebanese media

Lebanese official media said fresh Israeli strikes on the country's south on Saturday killed five people, despite a new ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hizbollah group announced a day earlier.

The state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli airstrikes on more than a dozen south Lebanon locations after midnight and into Saturday morning, many in and around the Nabatieh area.

It also reported Israeli artillery shelling on Nabatieh city and its outskirts, a region where fighting has been focused in recent days.

The NNA said three people were killed in airstrikes on the town of Arab Salim, while one person was killed in Deir Zahrani, and another after "an enemy drone launched a strike on a motorbike" at the entrance of the town of Dweir.

On Friday, a US official told AFP an immediate truce between Israel and Hizbollah had been brokered by US and Qatari mediators following talks with Israel and Iran. A Gulf diplomat confirmed the ceasefire.

Israel's ambassador to the US said his country would commit to the ceasefire if Hizbollah respected it.

Previous truce announcements have done little to stop attacks from either side.

The announcement came as Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli airstrikes and bombardment on the country's south and east killed 47 people on Friday, the worst violence since Washington and Tehran this week sealed a deal to halt the wider Middle East war.

That agreement was supposed to also halt fighting between Israel and Hizbollah in Lebanon.

Agence France-Presse