Nabatieh schools and government institutions close on Thursday after strike that killed seven people from one family
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At least seven civilians – all from the same family – were killed in a single Israeli strike on a residential apartment in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh on Wednesday night, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.
By Thursday morning a Civil Defence spokesman in Nabatieh declined to provide a final toll for dead and wounded, adding that the group was “still working”.
The attack capped the deadliest day of strikes since the cross-border conflict between Israel and armed groups led by Hezbollah began in October, after a wave of strikes earlier on Wednesday that killed a mother and two of her children in the town of Sawaneh, bringing the day’s civilian death toll to 10.
It is the highest number of civilians killed by Israel in a day since the conflict began on October 8, when Hezbollah formally announced its support for its ally Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The opening of the southern Lebanese front was intended as a pressure campaign to deter Israel from its assault on the besieged enclave.
Cross-border violence has killed at least 254 people on the Lebanese side, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also 38 civilians, according to an AFP tally. On the Israeli side, 10 soldiers and six civilians have been killed, according to the Israeli army.
The war began with the surprise attack on southern Israel by Hamas on October 7 that killed about 1,200 people, while Israel struck the densely populated Gaza Strip with relentless air strikes and a ground invasion, killing more than 28,000 people.
The war has gradually widened into a regional conflict as numerous Iran-allied militias announced their involvement in an attempt to pressure Israel into a ceasefire.
At least seven people were wounded in the Nabatieh attack, which knocked down part of a residential building, with a child among the bodies recovered.
The raid caused severe damage to the three-storey building and a nearby road, the state news agency reported. Cars and telephone infrastructure were also damaged.
Videos of the scene immediately after the attack showed chaos as ambulance crews rushed to clear rubble and find the injured.
Nabatieh schools and government institutions on Thursday announced that they would close “given the security conditions resulting from the repeated Israeli attacks, and out of concern for the safety of employees and stakeholders”, a statement carried by the National News Agency said.
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