Lebanese rescuers say 30 killed in Israeli strike on apartments

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Lebanese rescuers say 30 ******* in ******** strike on apartments

Reuters

Rescuers said it was unclear how many people were missing following Tuesday evening’s strike in Barja

First responders have recovered the bodies of 30 people ******* in an ******** air strike on an apartment building south of Beirut, Lebanon’s Civil Defence agency says.

Tuesday evening’s ******* destroyed one side of the four-storey building that was reportedly housing displaced people in the predominantly Sunni ******* coastal town of Barja and sparked a *****.

The ******** military said it struck “******* infrastructure” belonging to the Shia armed group Hezbollah.

Another 40 people were ******* in ******** strikes around the eastern governorates of Baalbek and Bekaa on Wednesday, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

Lebanon’s culture minister also said one of the strikes had seriously damaged an Ottoman-era building in the vicinity of the Roman ruins in the city of Baalbek, which is a Unesco World Heritage site.

An ******** military official said its strikes in the Baalbek area had targeted Hezbollah operatives.

Meanwhile, a rocket fired by Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon ******* an ******** man near a kibbutz in northern *******, paramedics said.

In Barja, a man who lived on one of the upper floors of the apartment building that was hit said his son and wife were injured by falling masonry.

“These rocks that you see here weigh 100kg, they fell on a 13kg ****,” Moussa Zahran told Reuters news agency as he surveyed the damage.

“I removed [the rocks] and… handed my son to the civil defence through the window. I carried my wife and came downstairs and got out behind the building… I thank ****, glory be to Him, for this miracle.”

Reuters

Moussa Zahran said his wife and son were injured by the air strike

An Irish Times correspondent cited a member of the civil defence at the scene as saying that

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– a seven-month-old baby and two ****** aged seven and 12.

Neighbours also said the building was housing displaced people who had fled from other areas, she added.

There was no evacuation warning ahead of the strike, according to Reuters.

The Lebanese health ministry gave a preliminary ****** toll of 20 from the strike on Barja late on Tuesday but did not provide an updated figure on Wednesday.

On Wednesday evening, the ministry said 40 people had been ******* and 53 others injured in a series of ******** strikes in Bekaa and Baalbek governorates, which make up most of the eastern Bekaa Valley. They included 16 people ******* in the village of Nasriyah and 11 in Baalbek city, it added.

Lebanese Culture Minister Mohammad Mortada also told the director-general of Unesco that one of the strikes had “caused serious damage to the ancient Manshiya building” in Baalbek city, which he said dated back to the Ottoman ******* and was located in the vicinity of the ruins of several Roman temples.

“The destruction of this exceptional monument next to a Unesco World Heritage site is an irremediable loss for Lebanon and for world heritage,” he warned.

An AFP news agency correspondent also reported that the famous 19th Century Palmyra Hotel near the Roman ruins was damaged by nearby strikes, which the health ministry said ******* two people.

An ******** military official said its aircraft had carried out strikes based on precise intelligence indicating the presence of Hezbollah operatives in the Baalbek area.

Lebanese media also reported new strikes in the southern city of Nabatieh and Beirut’s southern suburbs on Wednesday afternoon, after the ******** military ordered residents to evacuate areas around several buildings. The military said it had struck Hezbollah command centres, weapons stores and other infrastructure.

The military also said it had ******* the commander of Hezbollah’s forces in the southern border region of Khiam, and that a number of other Hezbollah fighters had been ******* by air strikes and by troops operating inside southern Lebanon over the past day.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s new secretary general, Naim Qassem, said in a speech that the group had “tens of thousands of trained resistance combatants” ready to ****** and that nowhere in ******* was “beyond the reach of our drones and missiles”.

“I will tell you very clearly, our conviction is that only one thing can stop this war of aggression, and that is the battlefield,” he declared, adding that he did not believe “political action” would end the conflict.

Reuters

A large section of a Hezbollah rocket hit a parked car in the town of Raanana, near Tel Aviv

The ******** military said Hezbollah fired about 170 rockets into northern and central ******* on Wednesday.

In the evening, the Magen David Adom ambulance service said a man was ******* by a rocket near the kibbutz of Kfar Masaryk, which is south of the coastal town of Acre.

Paramedics said the man was found in a field with severe shrapnel wounds and that he was pronounced ***** at the scene.

Later, ******** media identified him as Sivan Sade, an 18-year-old resident of Kfar Masaryk who had been working in the field.

Also on Wednesday, ******** media said one rocket hit a car park near Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, but the ******* Airport Authority said its operations were not affected. Hezbollah said it targeted the Tzrifin military base near the airport.

A large section of a rocket also hit a parked car in the town of Raanana, just north of Tel Aviv.

Since the escalation of the conflict between ******* and Hezbollah six weeks ago, at least 2,400 people have been ******* and more than 1.2 million displaced across Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities.

******** air strikes have eliminated most of the group’s leadership, including Qassem’s predecessor Hassan Nasrallah, and caused widespread destruction in parts of southern and eastern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs – areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

******* went on the offensive against Hezbollah after almost a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza.

It says it wants to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of residents of northern ******** border areas displaced by rocket attacks, which Hezbollah launched in support of Palestinians the day after its ally ******’s deadly ******* on ******* on 7 October 2023.

******** authorities say more than 70 people have been ******* by Hezbollah attacks in ******* and the occupied Golan Heights over the past year.

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