Lebanon says 9 dead in Israeli strikes on two villages

Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes on two villages Saturday, one north of Beirut and another to the south, killed at least nine people, as state media reported further strikes elsewhere.

An “Israeli enemy strike on Maaysra”, a village north of Beirut, killed “five people and wounded 14 others”, the ministry said in a statement.

Separately, it said that “four people were killed and 14 others wounded” in an “Israeli enemy strike” on Barja in the Shouf district south of the capital.

The official National News Agency (NNA) also reported unspecified casualties in a “Israeli strike” targeting Deir Billa, some 15 kilometres from the town of Batroun on Lebanon’s north coast.

It said families from south Lebanon had taken refuge in a house that was targeted.

And in east Lebanon, the management of the Tal Chiha hospital said in a statement that the facility sustained “light material damage” due to “strikes that targeted the vicinity” of the mainly Christian town of Zahle.

It reported no injuries to patients or staff and said the hospital was still operating.

Since September 23, Israel has been heavily bombarding Lebanon, saying it is targeting Hezbollah sites.

All four locations reported hit on Saturday are outside areas usually considered Hezbollah strongholds.

In Maaysra, an AFP correspondent saw excavators trying to remove chunks of a destroyed building as emergency personnel, one using a manual sledgehammer, worked to try to break through a huge slab of concrete.

In Deir Billa, another correspondent saw a mattress, pillows, bed covers, a washing basket and clothes among the wreckage, as people sifted through the rubble by hand and smoke rose from a smouldering pile.

Later Saturday, the NNA said “Israeli warplanes… carried out a strike that targeted the centre of the marketplace” in Nabatiyeh, an important south Lebanon city located around 12 kilometres from the border with Israel.

Israel’s army last week told residents to evacuate the city, which is home to public institutions, hospitals and a branch of the Lebanese University.

The NNA also reported that “enemy aircraft carried out a series of strikes” in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

Almost a year of cross-border exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah escalated into all-out war on September 23, with Israel bombarding south and east Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs, saying it is targeting Hezbollah.

The health ministry said Saturday that 26 people were killed the previous day, reporting 2,255 dead in a year of violence, more than half of these since September 23, according to an AFP tally.