BEIRUT (Lebanon) (AFP) – Lebanon said Israeli strikes killed 11 people across the country Tuesday, including five in a rare attack on a house east of Beirut, where a security official said displaced people lived.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah group also said it fired missiles at an air base near Tel Aviv, following a wave of Israeli air strikes on the group’s south Beirut bastion.
Since September 23, Israel has stepped up its bombing campaign in Lebanon, mainly targeting Hezbollah strongholds in south Beirut and in the east and south of the country. On September 30, it sent in ground troops.
“The Israeli enemy strike on Baalshmay killed five people,” the health ministry said in an initial report, referring to a mountain village east of Beirut, outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds.
The security official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the “Israeli strike targeted a house where displaced people lived, including women and children”.
Israeli strikes also killed one person in the eastern Hermel region and five others in the southern village of Tefahta, about 25 kilometres (15 miles) from the border with Israel, the ministry said.
Israeli strikes outside Hezbollah strongholds have often targeted buildings where displaced civilians have sought refuge, with Lebanese security officials telling AFP the targets were Hezbollah operatives.
On Monday, Israel struck Lebanon’s northernmost Akkar region, killing at least eight people according to the ministry, in one of the farthest attacks from the border since the war began in September.
On Sunday, Lebanon said an Israeli strike killed 23 people, including seven children, in the village of Almat, north of the capital.
SOUTH BEIRUT STRIKES
On Tuesday, Hezbollah targeted an “air base south of Tel Aviv… with a salvo of quality missiles”, the group said, after Israel’s military said it had intercepted projectiles fired from Lebanon.
Sirens sounded across central Israel and Israeli media reported that flights were temporarily halted at Ben Gurion International Airport.
That attack came after Israel launched more than a dozen air strikes on south Beirut, state media said, shortly after its military warned residents of four districts in the Hezbollah stronghold to evacuate.
“Israeli warplanes launched a violent strike targeting the Hadi Nasrallah highway, which is the 13th raid on Beirut’s southern suburb,” the official National News Agency (NNA) said.
Israel’s military later said it had struck “Hezbollah terrorist targets” in south Beirut including “command centres, weapons production sites, and additional Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure”.
Witnesses told AFP they heard gunfire in the area ahead of the strikes — warning shots by residents for people to leave following the evacuation call.
The NNA also reported Israeli attacks in east and south Lebanon, including on the southern city of Nabatiyeh.
Last month, Israeli strikes razed Nabatiyeh’s historic marketplace, with another wave of attacks hitting city hall and killing several people including the mayor.
The Lebanon war came after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges of fire, launched by Hezbollah in support of Hamas following its Palestinian ally’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.
More than 3,280 people have been killed in Lebanon since the clashes began last year, according to the health ministry, the majority of them since late September.
