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Israel launched a series of deadly air strikes across Lebanon that killed dozens of people since Sunday, as its military chief vowed to intensify the campaign against Hezbollah.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least five people, including a 15-year-old girl and two Sudanese citizens, were killed in an air attack on Al Jnah in Beirut. Another 52 people were injured, eight of them children.
An air strike on a car in Toul, southern Lebanon, killed a couple and injured their two children, aged nine and 15, the state-run National News Agency reported.
A drone strike hit a vehicle at the Kfarreman roundabout on Monday, setting a car ablaze and killing four occupants. Another person was killed in a separate drone attack in Al Fawqa in Nabatieh.
In the town of Borj Rahhal, at least three were killed and one injured in a strike on a house, where civil defence teams are working to recover the bodies.
At least three people, including two women, were killed in strikes on a building in Ain Saadeh, a Christian area overlooking Beirut that had until now largely been spared the violence between Hezbollah and Israel.
Two of the dead were identified as Pierre Maowad, local official from the Lebanese Forces (LF) and his wife. Their deaths could risk stoking sectarian hostilities further in Lebanon amid condemnation of Hezbollah from some groups, including the LF, for igniting a new war with Israel only 15 months after the last one.
The Lebanese Army was still picking through the site on Monday and clearing debris after the attack on Easter Sunday evening.
Ain Saadeh's mayor said the victims lived one floor below the apartment that was hit. It is not known who the target was but the Israeli military told Reuters it had struck a “terror target east of Beirut” without providing further details.
“Reports that several uninvolved individuals were harmed as a result of the strike are being reviewed,” the Israeli military said.
When asked about the killing of civilians including Mr Moawad at a briefing later on Monday, Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani said “the person you are referring to was definitely not a target”.
He said the military was trying to understand the circumstances and was working to declassify details of the intended target.
The Lebanese Armed Forces said an investigation “showed no new tenants in the building”.
“Meanwhile, it was found that one person was seen leaving the building on a motorcycle immediately after the attack, and the investigation is ongoing to uncover his identity and ascertain the remaining details,” it added.
Some residents and officials in predominantly Christian areas have expressed concern that arrivals from displaced communities could be linked to Hezbollah and draw Israeli attacks, with local authorities vetting those seeking rented accommodation.
LF leader Samir Geagea said security agencies “must obtain accurate lists of displaced individuals present in safe areas and conduct thorough surveys to ensure protection”.
Beirut MP Fouad Makhzoumi, a Sunni, called for the mandatory “registration of all tenants and occupants of properties” and the strengthening of security institutions. He said Lebanese citizens had been used “as human shields”.
The attack in Ain Saadeh came just hours after President Joseph Aoun, in his first televised address since the war erupted last month, said Lebanon's “primary concern is preserving civil peace, which is a red line”.
Elsewhere, an air strike killed two and wounded five in Mashghara in the Western Bekaa District, while a strike on the town of Aabba in the south killed at least four people, including the municipality chief and a police officer.
Speaking during a visit to Ras Al Bayada in southern Lebanon, Israeli army chief Lt Gen Eyal Zamir said the military was expanding the mission called “Operation Northern Arrows” and would continue with the aim of severely weakening Hezbollah. “The damage to Hezbollah will intensify,” he said.
Lebanon was drawn into the regional conflict after Iran-backed Hezbollah began launching missiles at Israel from Lebanese territory on March 2 in support of Iran. The state and the Lebanon Armed Forces have no role in the war, however.
Israel has since carried out widespread strikes across the neighbouring country and launched a ground incursion into the south, in what has become the most violent spillover of the conflict linked to the US and Israeli war with Iran.
By late March, more than 400 Hezbollah fighters had been killed, sources told Reuters. The Israeli military said at least 10 of its soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon over the same period.
Lebanese authorities say 1,461 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since March 2, including at least 124 children, while more than one million people have been displaced.
At least 10 Lebanese soldiers have also been killed in Israeli strikes during the same period, most of them in the south, according to the Lebanese Armed Forces.
