BEIRUT: Israeli strikes on Lebanon have killed 394 people over the past week, including 83 children and 42 women, the health minister said Sunday, after Israel expanded its attacks to a hotel in central Beirut.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war on Monday, when Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the outset of a US-Israeli campaign against the Islamic republic.
Health minister Rakan Nassereddine said at a press conference that nine rescue workers were among the 394 dead in Lebanon, condemning attacks on medical teams and ambulances.
“These are civilians being targeted, not, as they claim, military personnel and military installations. They are targeting homes, paramedics and the health sector,” Nassereddine said, adding “the pace of the massacres has increased in the past 48 hours”.
“Medical teams and ambulances are under attack, this is unacceptable.”
A previous toll announced on Saturday by the minister had put the number of dead at 294.
Israel never fully halted its strikes targeting Hezbollah despite a 2024 ceasefire that sought to end their last round of fighting, which broke out in 2023 when the group attacked Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas in Gaza.
Since Hezbollah’s latest attack on Monday, Israel has launched multiple waves of strikes across Lebanon and sent ground troops into border areas.
Early Sunday, the Lebanese health ministry said an Israeli air strike hit a hotel room in Beirut’s city centre, killing four people and wounding 10 others.
Israel’s military said it had “conducted a precise strike targeting key commanders” in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, its foreign operations arm.
‘We remain steadfast’
In Ghazieh, southern Lebanon, an Israeli attack flattened a building, with an AFP correspondent seeing destroyed solar panels above it and rescuers searching through the debris.
In Sir al-Gharbiyeh, the health ministry said at least 11 people were killed in Israeli morning strikes on the village.
The toll included children, with the minister adding that “there are still people trapped under the rubble”.
Standing next to a destroyed home, resident Ali Youssef Taha told AFP that “a family was sleeping inside” before “Israeli warplanes bombed the building, resulting in a massacre”.
Mayor Saadallah Mohammed Maatouk said around 500 families were staying in the town.
“What happened will not deter us, and we remain steadfast,” he said.
On Sunday, the Israeli military reiterated its call for residents south of Lebanon’s Litani river, around 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of the Israeli border, to flee the area.
Sir al-Gharbiyeh is located just above the river, and Ghazieh is further north on the coast.
Israel’s military, meanwhile, said Sunday that two of its soldiers were killed in combat in southern Lebanon, the first of its troops to have died since the latest offensive began on March 2.
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