A US-brokered calm that never quite settled southern Lebanon took another hit overnight. Lebanese health officials said Israeli strikes late Friday killed at least three people and wounded 23 across five locations in the Tyre and Nabatieh districts and the eastern Beqaa, even though a ceasefire framework between Israel and Hezbollah remains notionally in force.

State media and rescue sources described a motorcycle strike in Nabatieh that killed two young men and a house hit in Rmadiyeh, more than 10 kilometres from the Israeli border, where one person died and 15 were hurt — among them two children, three women and six rescuers. Lebanon's National News Agency said some of the fire fell near the strategic Ali al-Taher ridge, the highland Israel announced on Thursday it had brought under "operational control" after weeks of shelling, drones and tunnel fighting with Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has not confirmed losing the ridge. Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israeli forces would keep the group from re-establishing itself there. The hill sits north of the Litani River and has become the sharpest flashpoint since a June framework agreement sketched an Israeli withdrawal tied to Hezbollah's disarmament — a plan the Iran-aligned movement rejected and that US mediators have struggled to advance.

The human ledger of the wider Lebanon front remains grim. Beirut says Israeli airstrikes and a ground campaign since Hezbollah opened a support front for Iran in March have killed more than 4,300 people. Mid-August Israeli raids after a Hezbollah drone attack near Ali Taher killed 11, the deadliest day since the late-June truce, and further August strikes added more casualties. UN humanitarian coordinator Imran Riza warned that families returning to Nabatieh still face destroyed services and insecurity that make "return" a fragile word.

For the wider Middle East war, Lebanon is no longer a sealed secondary front. Pressure on Ali Taher, continued Israeli deep strikes, and Hezbollah's refusal to disarm north of the Litani all feed the same risk: a local ridge fight that reopens a national war while Iran and the United States trade blows elsewhere. Diplomats still talk about a managed de-escalation. Friday's toll shows how thin that talk has become on the ground.