Lebanon said Israeli strikes on Tuesday killed 33 people across the country, many of them displaced by intensifying fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
The attacks targeted not only known Hezbollah strongholds such as Beirut’s southern suburbs, but also areas where the Iran-backed group has traditionally not had a presence.
The health ministry said at least 15 people were killed in the attack on a town in the Chouf region, south of Beirut, up from the previous toll of 12.
“The Israeli attack on Jaun in the Chouf district … resulted in 15 martyrs, including eight women and four children,” it said.
The ministry said 12 others were injured in the attack.
The official National News Agency (NNA) said the building housed displaced people fleeing bombings by Israel in its war against Hezbollah.
The health ministry said eight people were killed in an attack a few kilometers further north in the mountainous Ely area, east of the capital.
A security source told AFP the attack hit a house where people displaced by the war had taken shelter.
The ministry also reported one person killed in an Israeli strike in the Tire region of southern Lebanon.
Two died in Israel
Elsewhere in the south of the country, the ministry reported that there were attacks on the towns of Tefehata and Raumin, killing seven people.
Two more people were killed in the attacks on the Hermel area in the Bekaa Valley in the country’s east, bordering Syria.
Nabatiyah, the largest city in the south, again came under attack. Last month, Israeli attacks destroyed its historic market and killed the mayor.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it fired missiles at an airport near Tel Aviv after a wave of Israeli air strikes on the group’s south Beirut stronghold.
Israel reported two people killed in a rocket attack from Lebanon in the northern city of Nahariya.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified its bombing campaign in Lebanon, primarily targeting south Beirut and Hezbollah strongholds in the east and south of the country. On 30 September, it sent ground forces.
Israeli strikes outside Hezbollah strongholds have often targeted buildings where displaced civilians have taken shelter, with Lebanese security officials telling AFP that the targets were Hezbollah activists.
Israel launched more than a dozen airstrikes on south Beirut on Tuesday morning, state media said, shortly after its military warned residents of four districts to evacuate.
thousands of people killed in lebanon
Israel’s military said it targeted “Hezbollah terrorist targets”, including “command centers, weapons production sites and additional Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure” in south Beirut.
Witnesses told AFP they heard gunshots in the area before the attack – after residents warned people to leave after an evacuation call.
The Lebanon war follows nearly a year of cross-border firing launched by Hezbollah in support of Hamas following its Palestinian ally’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the Gaza war.
With little sign of an end to the conflict, UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix met Prime Minister Najib Mikati in Beirut on Tuesday as part of a visit aimed at promoting calls for a ceasefire.
More than 3,300 people have been killed in Lebanon since the clashes began last year, according to the health ministry, most of them since late September.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
