Beirut:
Lebanon said 52 people were killed in Israeli military attacks on the country’s east and south on Thursday, which also hit southern Beirut, in what Hezbollah claimed was the heaviest attack on Israel in more than a year.
More than 11 months of cross-border shelling between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza conflict escalated into full-scale war in September, with Israel carrying out a massive bombing campaign primarily targeting Hezbollah strongholds. Ground forces were dispatched to southern Lebanon.
A Health Ministry statement said “40 people were killed and 52 injured” in “Israel’s enemy attacks targeting the Baalbek area” in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, and listed 10 tolls. did.
Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) said a couple and their four children were killed in an attack on a house in the village of Makneh, and another couple and their young daughter were among the 11 killed in an attack in nearby Naba. I told him.
The ministry also said that “attacks by Israel’s enemies” in the Nabatiyeh area of south Lebanon left “seven people dead and 24 injured” and that attacks in other parts of south Lebanon left “five people dead and 26 injured.” He was reported to have been injured.
In Israel, first responders said one man was killed after rockets from Lebanon hit the country’s northern Galilee region.
There were at least 12 airstrikes on the southern outskirts of Beirut throughout Thursday, NNA reports, after relative calm amid a visit by US special envoy Amos Hochstein earlier this week seeking to mediate an end to the Israel-Hezbollah war. did.
Israeli military spokesman Avichai Adlai said on social media platform
AFPTV footage showed plumes of smoke rising from the southern suburbs, usually a densely populated residential area but now mostly vacant land.
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Adley said in X that Israeli forces “targeted Hezbollah’s weapons depots, command centers and terrorist infrastructure” in southern Beirut.
Amid a series of attack claims, Hezbollah said its warplanes targeted Hazor Air Base near the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) from Lebanon’s southern border, “with a volley of missiles.” did. More than a year of hostilities.
Iran-backed Hezbollah said in 10 separate statements that its fighters were also targeting Israeli forces in the southern Lebanese town of Khiam and its suburbs using artillery, rockets and drones. .
The NNA announced that “enemy forces” had “blown up houses and residential buildings during the invasion of the town.”
Lebanese state news agency and Hezbollah have reported fighting and airstrikes in the Qiam area since Israeli ground forces first entered Lebanon on September 30.
The UN’s Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis Plaschart, said in the early hours of Thursday, after the UN’s cultural agency this week granted “transitional enhanced protection” to more than 30 heritage sites in Lebanon amid the war. We visited the archaeological area of Baalbek, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry announced Thursday that at least 3,583 people have died in violence since October 2023. Most of the deaths occurred after September of this year.
The Israeli military announced Wednesday that three soldiers were killed in south Lebanon, bringing the number of deaths in Lebanon since the start of the ground operation to 52.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
