BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) – Lebanon said Israeli strikes Thursday on the country’s east and south killed 52 people, as raids also hit south Beirut and Hezbollah claimed its deepest attack on Israel in over a year.
More than 11 months 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.
