Destroyed buildings are seen after a previous airstrike in Nabi Chit, Lebanon.

• Human Rights Watch accused Israel of using white phosphorus over a Lebanese town.
• At least 394 people have been killed in Israeli attacks, Lebanese authorities said.
• Two Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon.

Human Rights Watch on Monday accused Israel of “unlawfully” using white phosphorus over residential parts of a southern Lebanese town last week.

“The Israeli military unlawfully used artillery-fired white phosphorus munitions over homes on March 3, 2026, in the southern Lebanese town of Yohmor,” the New York-based rights group said in a report.

HRW added that it “verified and geolocated seven images showing airburst white phosphorus munitions being deployed over a residential part of the town and civil defence workers responding to fires in at least two homes and one car in that area”.

White phosphorus, a substance that ignites on contact with oxygen, can be used to create smokescreens and to illuminate battlefields.

But the munition can also be used as an incendiary weapon and can cause fires, horrific burns, respiratory damage, organ failure and death.

READ | Massive destruction in Lebanon following Israel strikes

Israel - which kept up strikes targeting Hezbollah despite a 2024 ceasefire - launched multiple waves of strikes across Lebanon since last week and sent ground troops into border areas after the Iran-backed group attacked it.

The Israeli army has since repeatedly called on people living south of the Litani River, around 30km north of the Israeli border, to leave.

At least 394 people have been killed in Israeli attacks, Lebanese authorities said, registering more than half a million people as displaced.

“The Israeli military’s unlawful use of white phosphorus over residential areas is extremely alarming and will have dire consequences for civilians,” Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at HRW, was quoted saying in the report.

“Israel should immediately halt this practice and states providing Israel with weapons, including white phosphorus munitions, should immediately suspend military assistance and arms sales and push Israel to stop firing such munitions in residential areas,” he added.

Lebanese authorities and HRW have, over the past years, accused Israel of using controversial white phosphorus rounds, in attacks authorities say have harmed civilians and the environment.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency on Sunday said Israeli forces targeted the towns of Khiam and Tal Nahas, near the border with Israel, “with artillery and phosphorus shelling”.

In February, Lebanon accused Israel of spraying the herbicide glyphosate on the Lebanese side of their shared border, with President Joseph Aoun decrying it as a “crime against the environment”.

Reuters reported that the Israeli military said on Sunday that two of its soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon, marking ⁠the first fatalities among its troops since Israel-Hezbollah hostilities resumed last week as Israel intensified air strikes on Lebanon.

The military did not immediately ‌provide ⁠further details on the circumstances of the incident.

Pope Leo said on Sunday that deeply troubling news continued to arrive from Iran and across the Middle ‌East, urging an end to the violence and renewed efforts to open space for dialogue.

As fighting escalated on the ninth day of the US-Israeli assault on Iran, the first US pope warned ⁠that the conflict was fuelling fear and hatred and raised concerns that it could spread further.

“Alongside the episodes of violence and devastation and the widespread climate of hatred and fear, there is also growing concern that the conflict could spread and that other countries in the region, including dear Lebanon, could once ‌again ⁠sink into instability,” Leo said at the Angelus prayer in St Peter’s Square.

“Let us raise our humble prayer to the Lord that the roar of bombs may cease, that ⁠weapons may fall silent, and that space may be opened for dialogue in which the voices of peoples can ⁠be heard”, he added.