Israeli strikes in Mount Lebanon villages kill 23, ministry says
At least 23 people have died in Israeli air strikes targeting two houses in central Lebanon, where displaced families were reportedly sheltering, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
In Joun, 15 people, mostly women and children, were killed, while another eight died near Baalchmay. Both villages are located in the Mount Lebanon region, outside areas with a significant Hezbollah presence.
The Israeli military said it is investigating the strikes, which followed its targeting of what it claimed were Hezbollah positions in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
In a separate incident, two people were killed by rocket fire from Hezbollah in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya.
This occurred a day after Israel’s defense minister stated that a ceasefire with Hezbollah would not be considered until its war objectives were met.
The Israeli military launched operations against Hezbollah, which it classifies as a terrorist organization, after nearly a year of cross-border hostilities ignited by the Gaza war. Israel has stated its goal is to ensure the safe return of thousands of residents displaced from northern Israeli border areas following rocket attacks from Hezbollah, which had supported Palestinians after Hamas’s deadly assault on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Since then, over 3,200 people have died in Lebanon, including 2,600 in the seven weeks following Israel’s air campaign and subsequent ground invasion in the south. The conflict has displaced more than 1.2 million people.
On Tuesday morning, the Israeli military carried out at least 10 strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahieh, after issuing evacuation orders for 11 locations.
Lebanese media reported that several buildings were levelled, including a medical centre in the Bir al-Abed area, but there were no reports of casualties.
The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah targets, including command centres and weapons production sites.
In the evening, the Israeli military declared that it had “dismantled a majority of Hezbollah’s weapons storage and missile manufacturing facilities” that had been “systematically concealed beneath civilian buildings” in Dahieh.
Most residents of Dahieh – one of the areas where Hezbollah has a significant presence, along with southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley – have fled because their neighbourhoods have been targeted repeatedly since September.
On Tuesday night, the Lebanese health ministry said 15 people were killed, including eight women and four children, in an Israeli strike on a house in Joun, in the Chouf mountains near the southern coastal city of Sidon.
The state-run National News Agency reported that displaced families had been staying there.
Residents and a security official said another house where displaced families had taken refuge was hit in Baalchmay, 30km (20 miles) to the north-east, killing eight people and injuring five.
Wael Murtada told the Associated Press that the home had belonged to his uncle and that those inside had fled from Dahieh about 40 days ago. He said at least three children were among the dead.
The targets of the two strikes were unclear.
Elsewhere in Lebanon, five people were killed in a strike in the southern village of Teffahta, according to the health ministry.
In the northern town of Ain Yaaqou, Lebanon’s Civil Defence agency said its first responders had recovered the bodies of 16 people, including four Syrian refugees, from the rubble of a residential building that was destroyed by an air strike on Monday night.
The Israeli military said its forces had targeted a “military structure with a terrorist inside”.
It also said Israeli soldiers were continuing ground operations in southern Lebanon to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure, including rocket launchers.
About 55 projectiles were fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon into Israel on Tuesday, according to the Israeli military.
One rocket hit a warehouse in Nahariya, killing two Israeli men in their 50s.
“There was a lot of destruction and an active fire,” paramedic Dor Vakinin told AFP news agency.
“We performed medical examinations on two men who were lying unconscious…Unfortunately, their injuries were too severe and after the examinations we had to determine the death of both of them.”
Hezbollah said its fighters had fired a barrage of rockets at an Israeli military base north of the town of Acre, and that it had also targeted troops stationed in several Israeli border communities.
A Hezbollah drone also hit the playground of a kindergarten in a suburb of the Israeli city of Haifa, but no-one was hurt.
On Monday, new Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X that he had told a forum of Israel generals that “there will be no ceasefire” until Hezbollah could no longer carry out such attacks.
“We will continue to hit Hezbollah with full force until the goals of the war are achieved. Israel will not agree to any arrangement that does not guarantee Israel’s right to enforce and prevent terrorism on its own,” he added.
Katz said the goals were “disarming Hezbollah and its withdrawal beyond the Litani river”, which runs about 30km north of the border with Israel, as well as “returning the residents of the north safely to their homes”.
Earlier, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar had said there was “a certain progress” after being asked by journalists in Jerusalem about a possible ceasefire.
Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif told a news conference in Beirut: “We hear a lot of talk, but so far, according to my information, nothing official has reached Lebanon or us in this regard.”
Lebanon’s government has called for a ceasefire based on the full implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
The resolution called for Lebanese territory south of the Litani to be free of any armed personnel or weapons other than those of the Lebanese state and a UN peacekeeping force.
Israel has long complained that the resolution failed to prevent Hezbollah from building a formidable military presence in south and firing rockets over the border.
