Israeli attacks in two villages on Mount Lebanon kill 23 people

At least 28 people were killed Tuesday in Israeli airstrikes on two houses in central Lebanon where displaced families were reportedly living, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.

Twenty people, mostly women and children, were killed in Joun and eight others were killed near Baalchmay. Both villages are located in the Mount Lebanon region and outside areas where the armed group Hezbollah has a strong presence.

The Israeli army said it had hit Hezbollah ‘terror facilities’. It previously hit a number of Hezbollah targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Meanwhile, two people were killed by Hezbollah rocket fire in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya.

It came a day after Israel’s defense minister ruled out a ceasefire with Hezbollah until the war’s goals were achieved.

The Israeli army went on the offensive against Hezbollah – which the country labels a terrorist organization – after nearly a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza.

Israel says it wants to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of residents of the northern Israeli border area displaced by rocket attacks, which Hezbollah launched in support of the Palestinians the day after ally Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, including 2,600 in the seven weeks since Israel launched an intensive air campaign followed by a ground invasion in the south, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. Another 1.2 million people have been displaced.

On Tuesday morning, the Israeli army carried out at least 10 attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahieh, after issuing evacuation orders for 11 locations.

Lebanese media reported that several buildings had been razed, including a medical center in the Bir al-Abed area, but there were no reports of casualties.

The Israeli military said it hit Hezbollah targets including command centers and weapons production sites.

In the evening, the Israeli military said it had “dismantled the majority of Hezbollah’s weapons storage and missile production facilities,” which were “systematically hidden under civilian buildings” in Dahieh.

Most residents of Dahieh – one of the areas where Hezbollah has a significant presence, along with southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley – have fled as their neighborhoods have been repeatedly targeted since September.

Twenty people, including eight women and eight children, were killed on Tuesday afternoon in an Israeli attack on a house in Joun, in the Chouf mountains near the southern coastal city of Sidon, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Wednesday.

The state-run National News Agency reported that displaced families had stayed there.

Residents and a security official said another house where displaced families had taken refuge was hit in Baalchmay, 30 km (19 miles) to the northeast, killing eight people and wounding five.

Wael Murtada told the Associated Press that the house had belonged to his uncle and that the inhabitants had fled from Dahieh about forty days ago. He said at least three children were among the dead.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday that the two attacks hit a Hezbollah “terror facility” but gave no details.

Elsewhere in Lebanon, five people were killed in a strike in the southern village of Teffahta, according to the Health Ministry.

In the northern city of Ain Yaaqoub, Lebanon’s Civil Defense Agency said its first responders had recovered the bodies of 16 people, including four Syrian refugees, from the rubble of a residential building destroyed by an airstrike on Monday evening.

The Israeli military said its forces targeted a “military structure with a terrorist inside.”

It also said Israeli soldiers continued ground operations in southern Lebanon to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure, including rocket launchers.

According to the Israeli military, about 55 projectiles were fired into Israel from Lebanon on Tuesday.

One rocket hit a warehouse in Nahariya, killing two Israeli men in their 50s.

“There was a lot of destruction and there was an active fire,” paramedic Dor Vakinin told the AFP news agency.

“We carried out medical examinations on two men who were lying unconscious… Unfortunately, their injuries were too serious and after the examinations we had to confirm the death of both of them.”

Hezbollah said its fighters had fired a barrage of rockets at an Israeli military base north of the city of Acre, and that it had also targeted troops stationed in several Israeli border communities.

A Hezbollah drone also hit the playground of a kindergarten in a suburb of the Israeli city of Haifa, but no one was injured.

On Monday, new Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X that he had told a forum of Israeli generals that “there will be no ceasefire” until Hezbollah can no longer carry out such attacks.

“We will continue to attack Hezbollah with full force until the objectives of the war are achieved. “Israel will not agree to any arrangement that does not guarantee Israel’s right to enforce and prevent terrorism on its own,” he added.

Katz said the goals are “to disarm Hezbollah and its withdrawal beyond the Litani River,” which runs about 30 km north of the border with Israel, and also to “return the residents of the north safely to their homes.” .

Earlier, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar had said there was “some progress” after journalists in Jerusalem asked him about a possible ceasefire.

Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif told a news conference in Beirut: “We hear a lot of talk, but so far, according to my information, nothing official in this regard has reached Lebanon or us.”

The Lebanese government has called for a ceasefire based on the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

The resolution called for Lebanese territory south of the Litani to be free of any armed personnel or weapons other than those of the Lebanese state and a UN peacekeeping force.

Israel has long complained that the resolution failed to stop Hezbollah from building a formidable military presence in the south and firing rockets across the border.