BEIRUT — Israeli warplanes carried out intense airstrikes on southern Lebanon early Saturday, killing one person, wounding seven others, and briefly cutting a highway that links Beirut with parts of the south, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.

The pre-dawn strikes hit the village of Msayleh, targeting a site that sold heavy machinery and destroying numerous vehicles.

According to Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV, a vehicle carrying vegetables that happened to be passing by was struck, killing one person and wounding another.

The Health Ministry later said the person killed was a Syrian citizen, while the wounded included a Syrian national and six Lebanese, among them two women.

The Israeli military said it targeted a location where machinery was stored for use in rebuilding infrastructure for Hezbollah.

Since the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war ended in late November with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, Israel has carried out near-daily airstrikes, killing dozens of people.

Israel accuses Hezbollah of trying to rebuild its military capabilities after suffering heavy losses during the war.

Earlier this month, U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk called for renewed efforts to achieve a permanent end to hostilities in Lebanon.

He said that as of the end of September, the U.N. had verified 103 civilian deaths in Lebanon since the ceasefire.

The most recent Israel-Hezbollah war killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians, and caused an estimated $11 billion in destruction, according to the World Bank. In Israel, 127 people died, including 80 soldiers.

The war began when Hezbollah launched rockets across the border on Oct. 8, 2023 — a day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel triggered the war in Gaza.

Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in an escalating conflict that turned into a full-scale war by late September 2024. — Agencies