Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon kill at least 24 people

Israeli airstrikes on Friday killed at least 24 people in northeastern Lebanon, the country’s news agency said, raising the death toll from eight.

It was the latest deadly toll in the area since the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah escalated last month.

Lebanon’s state National News Agency reported four airstrikes in different villages across the country’s north east, saying rescuers were still searching for survivors in Younine, a town in the Bekaa Valley, from the rubble of a targeted building that was believed to have housed 20 people.

Aistrikes

In recent days, Israel has intensified its airstrikes on the north-east city of Baalbek and nearby villages, as well as different parts of southern Lebanon, prompting roughly 60,000 people to flee their homes, according to Hussein Haj Hassan, a Lebanese official representing the region.

In an attack in the northeastern Baalbek-Hermel region, eight people were killed when a home was hit in the village of Amhaz and two more were killed in the village of Taraya, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.

Israel’s military said in a statement that attacks “in the area of Beirut” had targeted Hezbollah weapons manufacturing sites, command centres and other infrastructure.

Israeli planes also pounded Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh overnight, destroying dozens of buildings in several neighbourhoods, according to the news agency.

The early Friday airstrikes on Dahiyeh came after a four-day lull during which no airstrikes were reported in the suburb. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

International mediators are ramping up efforts to halt the wars in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, circulating new proposals to wind down the regional conflict.

Lebanon’s health ministry said more than 2,800 people have been killed and 13,000 wounded since October 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began firing rockets almost daily into Israel, drawing retaliation.

The death toll from more than a year of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has passed 43,000, Palestinian officials reported this week, without distinguishing between civilians and combatants.

The war began after Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 250 others.

Displacement

Jens Laerke, of the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Aid, said there has also been a “wave of displacement” in recent days as tens of thousands of people have fled following warnings from Israel’s military that attacks were imminent.

Hezbollah has been firing thousands of rockets, drones and missiles into Israel — and drawing fierce Israeli retaliatory strikes — since Hamas’ attack on Israel last year. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are backed by Iran, Israel’s regional adversary.

On Thursday, four Thai workers and an Israeli farmer were killed in an agricultural area in Metula, Israel’s northernmost town.

The four were among seven people killed on Thursday in a series of barrages fired at Israel from Lebanon.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Friday that his “personal and heartfelt condolences” went out to the government of Thailand, the Thai people and the families of those killed.

“Hezbollah-Iranian terrorism knows no limits and harms Israelis and civilians from all over the world alike,” he said in a statement.

Cross-border attacks from Hezbollah have killed 41 civilians and 30 soldiers in Israel so far, according to government figures.