BEIRUT: Israel struck dozens of south Lebanon villages and towns overnight and targeted Nabatiyeh city for a third time this week, Lebanese state media said on Sunday.
“Warplanes struck… the city of Nabatiyeh seven times” including on an inhabited building, with rescuers still looking for survivors under the rubble, the official National News Agency said.
The city where Hezbollah and ally Amal hold sway had seen deadly Israeli strikes on Wednesday that killed its mayor, with bloody attacks last week razing its marketplace.
It added that Israeli jets “conducted strikes” on more than 50 towns and villages including the border villages of Kfarshuba, Bint Jbeil and Khiam that have seen heavy fighting, reporting casualties.
“Israeli troops blew up the Tarrash neighbourhood in Mais al-Jabal,“ a border village where Hezbollah has clashed with Israeli soldiers, “after booby-trapping it with highly explosive materials,“ the NNA said.
The troops “bulldozed the cemetery in the village of Blida” nearby, the NNA added.
Also on Sunday, Israel air strikes targeted several south Beirut neighbourhoods after the Israeli army warned civilians to evacuate the stronghold of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, state media said.
Late last month, Israel launched an intense air campaign on Lebanon and sent in ground forces after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges with Hezbollah over the Gaza war.
Since then, the war has killed at least 1,454 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.
