The Israeli military intensified its bombardment of Lebanon overnight, leaving dozens of people dead and injured in airstrikes targeting Beirut and the country’s south from Sunday into Monday.
On Sunday night, an Israeli strike hit Beirut’s southern suburb of Jnah, killing at least five people, including a 15-year old girl, and injuring 52 others.
Footage from the scene showed mounds of rubble and debris, after a building roughly 100 metres from Rafik Hariri Public Hospital was struck, with rescue teams working to secure the area.
Israel claimed to have been targeting a member of Iran’s Quds Force in Beirut as well as alleged Hezbollah targets, without providing evidence.
In a separate incident the same night, three people, including two women, were killed and three others injured in an Israeli naval strike on the hills of Ain Saadeh, east of the capital.
In a statement on Monday, Israel acknowledged a failed assassination attempt on a Hezbollah operative, instead killing Pierre Moawad, a senior official in the Lebanese Forces — a Christian political party opposed to Hezbollah — along with his wife and another woman.
Further strikes hit southern Beirut into Monday morning, as the Israeli army renewed forced evacuation orders for residents of the capital’s southern neighbourhoods. Attacks expand across southern Lebanon More than one million people have been displaced by the war so far, with Israel previously ordering residents of southern Lebanon to flee their homes.
Israel continued its bombardment of southern regions overnight.
Lebanon’s civil defence reported at least four people killed in a drone strike on a car in Kfar Roummane in Nabatieh, while two others were killed in a strike in nearby Toul.
On Monday morning, Lebanon’s health ministry accused Israeli forces of again targeting medical workers, after two paramedics were killed and another injured in a strike in Haris, in Bint Jbeil district.
The victims were affiliated with the Islamic Health Authority, whose staff have been repeatedly targeted since Hezbollah entered the regional conflict on 2 March.
Elsewhere, three people were killed in Borj Rahhal , northeast of Tyre, while two others died in an overnight strike on Zawtar al-Sharqiya.
In the Western Bekaa Valley, Israeli airstrikes at dawn hit the towns of Mashghara, Sahmar, Qilya and Zalaya, destroying several homes. At least two people were killed and five others injured in Mashghara, according to Lebanese state media.
Hezbollah said it had retaliated by targeting towns and military sites in northern Israel, including Nahariya, with a rocket barrage, and an alleged military gathering in Ainata. Israel has not commented on these claims.
The group also claimed to have fired a cruise missile at an Israeli warship off the coast, though neither the Israeli military nor the UK Maritime Organisation reported any damage or vessel hit.