ISRAELI drone strikes on southern Lebanon killed eight people today, including a father and his son and daughter.

The attacks came a day after US President Donald Trump said Israel and Hezbollah had both agreed to rein in fighting.

Israel threatened on Monday to strike Beirut’s southern suburbs, causing panic in the Lebanese capital as thousands of people fled to safer areas and Hezbollah fired rockets at northern Israel. 

Israeli forces have recently made their deepest incursion into Lebanon in 26 years, but Beirut has been mostly spared over the past six weeks, apart from two attacks on the city’s southern suburbs in May.

After Iran threatened to end all talks with the US, Mr Trump announced in a social media post that he had spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hezbollah through mediators, with the result that “there will be no troops going to Beirut.”

He said Hezbollah had “agreed that all shooting will stop — that Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel.”

Mr Netanyahu said he had told Mr Trump that Israel would strike targets in Beirut if Hezbollah’s attacks did not stop. 

Lebanon’s National News Agency reported today that an Israeli drone strike had hit a car on the road linking the southern town of Marjayoun with the city of Nabatiyeh, killing James Karam, a dentist from the nearby Christian town of Qlayaa, and his daughter and son. 

A drone strike on the village of Jibchit killed two Syrians who worked at a plant nursery, the agency reported, while another on the nearby village of Toul claimed a further two lives. A third strike hit a car near the village of Harouf, killing one person.

The news agency also reported that an Israeli air strike on Monday had killed six people in the southern village of Marwaniyeh.

Hezbollah said today that its fighters had fired anti-tank missiles at Israeli troops pushing into the southern village of Hadatha.

Sirens sounded in several areas of northern Israel, the military said in a statement, adding that “a suspicious aerial target” was identified in the area where Israeli soldiers are operating in southern Lebanon.

Despite a Washington-brokered ceasefire in the Iran war agreed in April, Hezbollah and Israel have continued attacks on each other.

Tehran has always insisted that the April ceasefire deal also included Lebanon.

According to Mr Netanyahu’s office, at least 27 Israeli soldiers and a defence contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon. Two civilians have also been killed in northern Israel.