The Lebanese Health Ministry reports that at least 21 people were killed and eight more injured in an Israeli airstrike in northern Lebanon.
The strike targeted a residential building located in Aitou, an overwhelmingly Christian village located far from the areas of Israel where thousands of strikes have been conducted by the Israeli military against the armed Shia Islamist Hezbollah group.
Residents reported that a family who had recently been displaced by war lived there.
The Israeli military did comment on the reports, but not immediately. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, said that he would “continue to attack Hezbollah with no mercy everywhere in Lebanon including Beirut”.
“Everything is done according to operational considerations.” “We have proved this recently and will continue to do so in the days ahead,” he said.
He spoke during a visit at a military base located in northern Israel, where a drone launched on Sunday night by the Iran-backed group was responsible for the deaths of four Israeli soldiers. Dozens were also injured.
The military said that it was investigating the way the drone managed to evade its sophisticated air defence system and hit the Golani Brigade Training Facility near the town of Binyamina.
Hezbollah launched one of its deadliest attacks against Israel in the over a year-long cross-border fighting that was sparked by Gaza’s war.
Hezbollah claimed it was in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanon that, according to the health ministry of the country, have killed nearly 1,700 people in the last month.
Most of the Israeli airstrikes over the last week have targeted the Bekaa valley in the east and the majority Shia south – areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence.
Aitou, the Maronite Christian Community located in the mountains north-west of Tripoli on the coast, was not the place where anyone would have expected an attack.
“Oh mother Mary,” cried one man as he walked by the devastation that had been wrought in the village.
In the smoke and dust bodies were visible on the ground.
Residents said that there was no warning. Just a single, massive explosion.
They also said that several families who had been displaced from the war in the South had recently moved to Aitou and that the house, which was damaged, had only two weeks earlier been rented to new tenants.
A Lebanese source of security told AFP that the building had been “targeted soon after a man arrived in a vehicle”.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said it was conducting DNA tests to determine if the remains found by first responders were the same as the ones recovered.
Also on Monday, Israel’s military announced that a strike in southern Nabatieh killed the commander of Hezbollah Radwan Force’s elite anti-tank force.
Hezbollah did not comment on the report.
The military said that it also struck Hezbollah launchers, which were used to fire a variety of rockets in central and northern Israel.
According to the military, most of the rockets intercepted or fell on open areas.
A barrage of 15 rockets fired at the northern town Karmiel resulted in a light injury to one woman.
Israeli police said that debris from the interception fell south of Tel Aviv in the area of Holon, without causing injuries or damage.
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