 "Destroyed buildings that were hit by Israeli airstrikes are seen in Qana village, south Lebanon, on Wednesday. AP")
Israeli airstrikes struck various locations across Lebanon, resulting in the deaths of at least 21 people, according to The Associated Press report, citing officials on Wednesday.
Among the casualties were more than a dozen individuals in a southern town, deeply marked by the scars of previous Israeli bombardments.
In another part of the south, a mayor was among those killed in a strike that Lebanese officials claimed targeted a meeting focused on coordinating relief efforts.
The Israeli military did not provide an immediate response regarding the late Tuesday strikes on the southern town of Qana, where 15 lives were lost.
According to an Associated Press report, photos and video of the scene showed several flattened buildings and others with their top floors collapsed. Rescue workers carried away the remains of dead people and used a bulldozer to remove rubble, as they searched for more victims.
In 1996, Israeli artillery shelling on a United Nations compound housing hundreds of displaced people in Qana killed at least 100 civilians and wounded scores more people, including four UN peacekeepers.
During the 2006 war, an Israeli strike on a residential building killed nearly three dozen people, a third of them children. Israel said at the time that it struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher behind the building.
“Qana always gets its share,” The Associated Press quoted Mayor Mohammed Krasht as saying, referring to the town’s grim history.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, meanwhile accused Israel of “intentionally targeting” a municipal council meeting to discuss relief efforts in Nabatiyeh, where six people were killed.
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More Shorts“What solution can be hoped for in light of this reality?” he asked in a statement.
The Israeli military said it targeted Hezbollah command centers and weapons facilities that had been embedded in civilian areas of Nabatiyeh in Wednesday’s strikes, without providing evidence.
Israel also resumed its barrage on Beirut’s southern suburbs after a six-day pause, hitting what it said was an arms warehouse under an apartment building, without providing evidence. The military warned residents to evacuate before the strike, and there were no reports of casualties.
Israel resumes strikes on Beirut
The strikes on southern Beirut came after Mikati said the United States had given him assurances that Israel would curb its strikes on the capital.
Hezbollah has a strong presence in southern Beirut, known as the Dahiyeh, which is also a residential and commercial area home to large numbers of civilians and people unaffiliated with the militant group.
The Israeli military posted an evacuation warning on the social media platform X ahead of the strike in Beirut. An Associated Press photographer saw three airstrikes in the area, the first coming less than an hour after the notice.
In Nabatiyeh, more than half a dozen strikes hit the city and surrounding areas, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which said at least six people were killed and 43 wounded, with rescue efforts still underway. The city’s mayor, Ahmad Kahil, was among those killed, provincial governor Huwaida Turk told The Associated Press.
In his statement about Nabatiyeh, Mikati, the caretaker prime minister, said the international community has been “deliberately silent” about Israeli strikes that have killed civilians.
UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert called reports of Kahlil’s death “alarming.”
“This attack follows other incidents in which civilians and civilian infrastructure have been targeted across Lebanon,” she said.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, following the surprise Hamas attack on southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
A year of low-level fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border escalated into all-out war last month, and Israel invaded Lebanon at the start of October. Israeli airstrikes have killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of his senior commanders, and Israel has vowed to continue its offensive until its citizens can safely return to communities near the border.
Some 2,300 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since last October, more than three-quarters of them in the past month, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The fighting has displaced some 1.2 million people in Lebanon.
Hezbollah’s rocket attacks, which have extended their range and grown more intense over the past month, have driven around 60,000 Israelis from their homes in the north. The attacks have killed nearly 60 people in Israel, around half of them soldiers.
Hezbollah has said it will keep up its attacks until there is a cease-fire in Gaza, but that appears increasingly remote after months of negotiations brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar sputtered to a halt.
With inputs from agencies