7 children among 23 dead in Israeli strike on Lebanon

Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli strike on Sunday killed 23 people, including seven children, in the village of Almat north of the capital Beirut.

AFPTV footage showed rescuers rummaging with their bare hands through the wreckage of a house that had been completely razed, pulling out bodies wrapped in blankets while an excavator moved the rubble.

The Shiite majority village of Almat, about 30 kilometres from Beirut, is located in a mostly Christian region. It is outside Hizbollah’s traditional strongholds of south Beirut and south and east Lebanon, which Israel has heavily bombed since late September in its war against the Iran-backed movement. “The Israeli enemy strike on Almat in the Jbeil district killed 23 people including seven children, in an updated but not final toll,” the health ministry said in a statement.

It also said body parts had been recovered from the site and were being identified.

A pile of broken concrete and the twisted metal structure that made up the roof lay at the bottom of a staircase leading to the destroyed house, AFP images showed.

Hizbollah lawmaker Raed Berro, one of the members of parliament representing the Jbeil district, was at the site of the strike and denied Israeli claims that Hizbollah members or weapons were embedded among civilians.

“Important military and security figures are usually on the frontlines… not at the rear,” he told reporters.

“Under the rubble, there are only children, elderly men and women,” he said.

Facebook user Ali Haydar posted a picture of the home, which he said belonged to his family, before it was destroyed. He added that people displaced from the eastern Baalbek region had sought refuge there.

“There were 35 relatives of ours from Baalbek in the house” including women and children, he said.

“Most of them have been martyred” in the strike, Haydar added.

The area was cordoned off by Lebanese security forces and Hizbollah members in civilian clothing, a correspondent at the scene saw.

Dozens of people packed their belongings in their cars and fled the village, the correspondent said.

The health ministry also said Israeli strikes killed three Hizbollah-affiliated rescuers in south Lebanon.

Earlier, Lebanese official media reported an Israeli strike on a house in the main eastern city of Baalbek, which was not preceded by an Israeli army evacuation warning.

“Enemy aircraft launched a strike on a house in the Al Laqees neighbourhood” of the city, the state-run National News Agency said.

Israel intensified its air campaign mainly targeting Hizbollah bastions in Lebanon on Sept.23 and a week later sent in ground troops.

The escalation came after nearly a year of low-intensity, cross-border attacks by Hizbollah in support of its ally Hamas following the Oct.7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

More than 3,130 people have been killed in Lebanon since the cross-border exchanges began, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, most of them since Sept.23.

Earlier, Lebanese state media said the Israeli army detonated explosives planted inside houses in three border villages that have been battered by the Israel-Hizbollah war. Hizbollah says it is engaged in fighting Israeli forces in the area, more than a month into an Israeli ground invasion aimed at pushing the Iran-backed group away from the border.

“Since this morning, the Israeli enemy’s army has been carrying out bombing operations inside the villages of Yaroun, Aitaroun and Maroun Al Ras in the Bint Jbeil area, with the aim of destroying residential homes there,” the official National News Agency said.

Israeli forces also conducted a raid in the nearby town of Bint Jbeil, NNA said, after Hizbollah said it targeted Israeli troops in the flashpoint border region.

Hizbollah said on Thursday it had “ambushed” Israeli ground forces attempting to infiltrate Yaroun.

The Iran-backed group has claimed eight operations since Wednesday targeting Israeli troops on the outskirts of Maroun Al Ras.

Friday’s explosions were the latest in a string of similar incidents that have impacted the border area.