Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon leave 66 dead, hospitals overwhelmed
At least 66 people were killed on Sunday in Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon, according to media in that country. The Ministry of Health in Beirut reports 35 dead. Hospitals are overwhelmed with the injured. Most of the victims are civilians, reports BBC.
In the town of Ain Deleb in southern Lebanon, at least 24 people were killed, and 29 were injured in the attack. Another 21 people lost their lives, and 47 were injured in an airstrike on the city of Baalbek in the eastern Bekaa Valley - conveyed the Ministry of Health.
In the town of Zbud in the Bekaa Valley on Sunday, at least 17 members of one family lost their lives. Four more people were killed in airstrikes on the town of Halbata - reported the state-run Lebanese news agency NNA.
In airstrikes on the Bekaa Valley, Mohammad Dahrudj, a high-ranking commander of the Sunni armed group Jamaa Islamija, which has launched rockets into Israeli territory over the past year, was also killed - reported Reuters, citing sources in the Lebanese security apparatus. It was added that Israel had previously targeted prominent members of this organisation.
The Israeli army reported that it was conducting airstrikes on Hezbollah targets across Lebanon on Sunday. In the latest wave of strikes, 45 locations associated with the group in the south of the country, including weapons arsenals, were attacked - stated an afternoon communiqué. Earlier, another airstrike was reported on the southern district of Beirut, Dahieh, a bastion of Hezbollah.
The military added that in the afternoon, Hezbollah launched approximately 20 rockets into northern Israel. Most of them were intercepted, and no casualties or damages were reported. The Iran-backed Lebanese group confirmed the attack, noting that the target was the city of Safed.
Hospitals overwhelmed
In the past two days, 14 medics have been killed in Israeli airstrikes - reported the Lebanese Ministry of Health on Sunday.
Israel emphasises that the intensive airstrikes on Lebanon, conducted since Monday, target Hezbollah's infrastructure and fighters and aim to facilitate the return home of over 60,000 people evacuated from northern Israel due to the rocket attacks by the group that started after the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip last year.
Hospitals in the Bekaa Valley are overwhelmed. "The hospital has received about 400 casualties from Israeli attacks in the past week or so – all of them civilians," detailed Basel Abdalah, medical director of a hospital in the Bekaa Valley, in an interview with BBC. "About 100 of them have died. There were women, children, and the elderly among the casualties, and several families have lost more than one person," he added. The facility is overcrowded with injured people waiting for assistance.
"I am not Hezbollah. And my daughter is just a child who was out playing," said the father of a six-year-old girl who was critically injured in Monday's airstrike and has been in critical condition ever since.
