Israeli attacks on Lebanon kill 40 people around Baalbek, the Health Ministry says

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Israeli attacks on Lebanon killed 40 people around the eastern Beqaa Valley town of Baalbek on Wednesday, according to the Health Ministry, and hit Beirut’s southern suburbs even more at dusk.

Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah have exchanged fire for more than a year in parallel to the war in Gaza, but fighting has escalated since late September, with Israeli forces intensifying bombardments of southern and eastern Lebanon and ground incursions into border villages have carried out.

Israeli attacks on Baalbek and the Bekaa Valley have killed 40 people and injured 53, the Health Ministry said. The Israeli military made no comment.

Israel has repeatedly attacked strongholds of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut.

The Israeli army ordered residents of the southern suburbs to evacuate several locations on Wednesday. Two waves of bombings followed, one late Wednesday and another early Thursday.

Lebanon’s Al Jadeed TV reported that there were at least four strikes on Thursday. There was no immediate report of casualties or details of what had been affected.

Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem said on Wednesday he did not believe political action would end hostilities.

He said there could be a path to indirect negotiations if Israel stopped its attacks.

“When the enemy decides to stop the aggression, there is a path for negotiations that we have clearly defined: indirect negotiations through the Lebanese state and Speaker (of Parliament Nabih) Berri,” Qassem said.

US diplomatic efforts to halt fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, including a proposed 60-day ceasefire, faltered last week ahead of Tuesday’s US elections, in which former President Donald Trump won White House retaken.

Rescue workers dig for survivors

More than 3,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the past year, the vast majority in the past six weeks.

Lebanese rescue workers searched a destroyed apartment building in the town of Barja, south of Beirut, looking for bodies or survivors after an Israeli attack killed 20 people on Tuesday evening, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.

Moussa Zahran, who lived on one of the top floors of the building, returned to search the ruins of his home. His burned feet were wrapped in gauze and his son and wife were in hospital after being injured in the strike.

“These bricks you see here weigh 100 kilos; they fell on a 13 kilo child,” he said, referring to his son and the apartment wall that collapsed on him during the attack.

It was not clear whether the attack was against a Hezbollah member. There was no evacuation warning prior to the airstrike.

Hezbollah said on Wednesday it had fired rockets at an Israeli military base near Ben Gurion Airport. Israeli media reported that a rocket had landed near the airport.

Later, the Israeli military said dozens of projectiles entered Israel from Lebanon, some of which were intercepted.

Efforts to bring a diplomatic end to the conflict have stalled. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday appointed Israel Katz as defense minister, vowing to defeat Hezbollah so people displaced from Israel’s north could return home.

Berri – a Hezbollah ally and diplomatic interlocutor – met with the US and Saudi ambassadors in Lebanon on Wednesday to discuss political developments, his office said, without providing further details.

Lebanon’s interim prime minister, meanwhile, congratulated the US president-elect.

Netanyahu cheered Trump’s election, while senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Trump would be tested on his claims that as president he can stop the war in Gaza within hours.

(Reporting by Aziz Taher and Hassan Hankir in Barja; additional reporting by Maya Gebeily, Clauda Tanios, Jaidaa Taha and Enas Alashray; writing by Maya Gebeily and Rod Nickel; editing by William Maclean, Ros Russell, Daniel Wallis and Cynthia Osterman)