Israeli strikes kill 52 people in Lebanon

Lebanon said Israeli strikes on the country’s east and south killed 52 people on Thursday, as raids also hit south Beirut and Hezbollah claimed its deepest attack on Israel in over a year. 

More than a year of cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza conflict escalated into all-out war in September, with Israel conducting an extensive bombing campaign, primarily targeting Hezbollah strongholds, and sending ground troops into southern Lebanon.

“Israeli enemy strikes that targeted the Baalbek district” in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley left “40 dead and 52 wounded”, a health ministry statement said, listing tolls for 10 different locations.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said a couple and their four children were killed in a strike on a house in the village of Maqneh, while another couple and their young daughter were among 11 people killed in a raid on nearby Nabha.

The ministry also reported “seven dead and 24 wounded” in “Israeli enemy strikes” on south Lebanon’s Nabatiyeh district, and “five dead and 26 wounded” in strikes elsewhere in south Lebanon.

In Israel, first responders said a man was killed after rocket fire from Lebanon hit the Galilee region in the country’s north.

In Beirut’s southern suburbs, the NNA reported at least 12 strikes throughout Thursday, after relative calm while US envoy Amos Hochstein visited earlier this week, seeking to broker an end to the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee on social media platform X issued several rounds of evacuation warnings for Beirut’s southern suburbs, as well as areas in and around the southern coastal city of Tyre, but none for east Lebanon.

AFPTV footage showed columns of smoke rising from the southern suburbs, usually a densely populated residential district but now largely emptied.

Adraee said on X that the Israeli military “targeted a weapons depot, a command headquarters and terrorist infrastructure” belonging to Hezbollah in south Beirut.

Amid a series of attack claims, Hezbollah said its fighters targeted “the Hatzor air base” near Israel’s southern city of Ashdod, around 150 km (90 miles) from Lebanon’s southern border, “with a missile salvo” -- its deepest target in more than a year of hostilities.

In 10 separate statements, Iran-backed Hezbollah said its fighters also targeted Israeli troops in and near the south Lebanon town of Khiam, including with artillery, rockets and drones.

The NNA said “the enemy army” was “blowing up homes and residential buildings during its incursion into the town”.

Lebanon’s official news agency and Hezbollah have reported fighting and air strikes in the Khiam area ever since Israeli ground troops first entered Lebanon on September 30. 

Earlier Thursday, United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert visited Baalbek’s UNESCO-listed archaeological area, after the UN’s cultural body this week granted more than 30 heritage sites in Lebanon “provisional enhanced protection” amid the war.

Lebanon’s health ministry said Thursday that at least 3,583 people had been killed in the violence since October 2023. Most of the deaths have been since September this year.

The Israeli military said Wednesday that three soldiers were killed in south Lebanon, bringing to 52 the number killed in Lebanon since the start of ground operations.