(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa): The death toll in Lebanon from Israeli attacks since Oct. 8, 2023, has risen to 2,255, with 10,524 others injured, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Saturday.
It said that 26 people were killed and 144 injured over the last 24 hours.
Israel has mounted massive airstrikes across Lebanon against what it claims are Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23, killing at least 1,437 people, injuring over 4,123 others and displacing more than 1.34 million.
Meanwhile in Gaza Israeli forces indiscriminately killed 49 Palestinians, injured 219 in last 24 hours in Gaza.
LEBANON
At least nine people were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes on Mt. Lebanon on Saturday, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.
The first strike targeted an apartment in a residential building in the town of Barja, killing four people and injuring 14 others, a ministry statement said.
The airstrike marked the first Israeli attack on the town since the onset of the onslaught, according to local media.
The second airstrike hit a home in the town of Maaysrah, killing five people and injuring 14 others, the Health Ministry said.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health has released updates on the death tolls that resulted from two recent Israeli strikes.
At least nine people were killed and 15 wounded in the village of Maaysrah, the ministry said. Maaysrah is located in the Mount Lebanon governorate, between Beirut and the city of Byblos.
At least four were also killed and 18 wounded in the town of Barja, in the Chouf district of Lebanon, the ministry said.
A government hospital in the Baalbek region of eastern Lebanon said Saturday that several patients were injured and it sustained severe damage from Israeli airstrikes near the hospital.
The Tamnin General Hospital said that “for the third consecutive time today, the aggressive Israeli enemy has targeted the area surrounding the hospital.”
The strikes “resulted in significant and severe damage to the hospital, in addition to injuring many patients present in the hospital due to flying glass and shrapnel.”
“While we condemn this aggression against healthcare institutions, we assure the enemy that its brutality will not deter us from continuing our path,” it added.
At least 35 rockets were launched from Lebanon toward Haifa Bay and other cities in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel, the Israeli army said on Saturday.
In a statement on X, the Israeli army said that some of these rockets were intercepted, while others fell in the region, without providing further details.
Earlier, a series of sirens were heard in Akko, Haifa Bay, and several settlements in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel.
We have been reporting throughout the evening on an Israeli air strike hitting the main commercial market street of Nabaiteh, a major city in southern Lebanon, said Al Jazeera.
Now, the country’s Health Ministry said at least eight people have been wounded there while rescue teams are still working to extinguish fires and remove the rubble that resulted from the strike.
Two people were injured in a separate Israeli air raid in Aitat, in the southern Tyre district, the ministry added.
The ministry added that four people were injured in Temnine, a village in the eastern Baalbek region as Israeli air strikes damaged three hospitals in the area. “For the third consecutive time today, the aggressive Israeli enemy has targeted the area surrounding the hospital,” an official from the Temnine General Hospital was quoted as saying by the Anadolu news agency.
The strikes “resulted in significant and severe damage to the hospital, in addition to injuring many patients present in the hospital due to flying glass and shrapnel”, Anadolu added.
The Israeli army on Saturday ordered the residents of 23 villages in southern Lebanon to immediately evacuate their homes.
In a statement on X, Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee listed the areas, including Ayta ash Shab, Ramieh, Yater, Qaouzah, Bayt Lif, Hanine, Rachaf, Aynata, Qlaileh, Al-Haush, Nabaa, Touline, Al-Tamriya, Khiam, Al-Khirbah, Kfarhamam.
The list also included Louaizeh, Jisr Abu Zebla, Jabal Al-Adas, Dahr Barriet Jaber, Kafra, Ramadiyeh, and Zibqine.
Adraee claimed that “Hezbollah’s activities in the region were forcing the Israeli army to take necessary actions.”
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) says unknown gunfire on Friday night hit a peacekeeper, the fifth wounded in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border in just two days.
Israeli attacks and injury of UNIFIL peacekeepers in southern Lebanon over the past two days have been condemned as “unjustifiable” by France, Italy, Spain and other countries.
GAZA
At least 49 more Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, bringing the overall death toll since last year to 42,175, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Saturday.
A ministry statement added that some 98,336 others were injured in the ongoing assault.
“Israeli forces killed 49 people and injured 219 others in five massacres of families in the last 24 hours,” the ministry said.
“Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.
At least 22 people killed in an Israeli attack on the Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza that a witness described as being like a “strong earthquake”.
An Israeli army drone airstrike Saturday evening killed six Palestinian civilians and injured others in the Jabalia and al-Maghazai refugee camps in the war-torn Gaza Strip, according to local sources.
They said that an Israeli army drone conducted an airstrike targeting a group of civilians in the vicinity of al-Wusta centre in the al-Maghazi refugee camp, killing two and injuring two others.
They added that Israeli fighter jets targeted a house belonging to the al-Harsh family in the al-Yafawiya neighbourhood in the Jabalia refugee camp, killing four civilians, including a woman, and injuring others, simultaneously while firing volleys of smoke bombs in the al-Jala Road.
Meanwhile, Israeli fighter jets also targeted a house in the at-Tuffah neighbourhood, east of Gaza City, as well as a group of civilians in the Zaytoun neighbourhood, south of Gaza, resulting in a number of casualties.
At least three people were killed in an attack by an Israeli drone missile on a group of people who were gathering around a water tank in Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, our correspondent on the ground reports.
Casualties arriving at the Al-Aqsa Hospital were shredded and fully soaked in blood, they said.
“Either you kill all of us or relocate us abroad,” a man on the scene told Al Jazeera. “Every day, we experience anguish over our relatives, neighbours and loved ones. We are suffocating … we are dying! Every day, we grieve the killing of someone new,” he said.
“Girls killed. Children torn to pieces. They are all gone. Put an end to this war, we can’t take it any more,” he added.
At least 12 Palestinians were killed on Saturday in fresh Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip, according to medical sources.
Emergency teams reached seven dead bodies and recovered four injured after the Israeli army hit a house in Al-Hawaja Street in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, a medical source told Anadolu.
Two Palestinians have lost their lives, and several others were injured due to an Israeli attack on a group of civilians in the Man’ama area near the Al-Salah Clinic in the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza.
Another Israeli airstrike targeted a gathering of civilians near the Jundia family’s home in the Shujayya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, killing three family members and injuring several others, the same source added.
The Israeli army bombed the al-Harash family house in Jabalia with two consecutive strikes, eyewitnesses told Anadolu.
Medical sources in Gaza reported that 24 Palestinians were killed and approximately 90 others wounded in Israeli airstrikes that targeted a civilian gathering and a residential block of four houses in Jabalia late Friday.
An Israeli army drone airstrike Saturday evening killed six Palestinian civilians and injured others in the Jabalia and al-Maghazai refugee camps in the war-torn Gaza Strip, according to local sources.
They said that an Israeli army drone conducted an airstrike targeting a group of civilians in the vicinity of al-Wusta centre in the al-Maghazi refugee camp, killing two and injuring two others.
They added that Israeli fighter jets targeted a house belonging to the al-Harsh family in the al-Yafawiya neighbourhood in the Jabalia refugee camp, killing four civilians, including a woman, and injuring others, simultaneously while firing volleys of smoke bombs in the al-Jala Road.
The Israeli army claimed earlier that it had detected the launch of two rockets from northern Gaza toward the Ashkelon area in southern Israel, despite its ground offensive into the northern Palestinian enclave and a siege that has been in place for the seventh consecutive day.
In Israel, at least 1,139 people were killed on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 people were taken captive.
[Photo: Palestinians mourn family members killed by Israeli attacks on Maghazi Camp, Gaza & have come to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for treatment on 12 10, 2024. Photojournalist: Ashraf Amra /AA]
