Lebanon: Israel launches deadly air strike on Christian area
An Israeli air strike on a Christian-majority town in northern Lebanon has killed at least 18 people, according to the Lebanese Red Cross.
The attack struck an apartment building in Aitou, in the Zgharta district, on Monday afternoon, according to Lebanon's health ministry.
This was the first time the Christian majority town of Aitou had been hit since conflict broke out between Israel and Hezbollah in October last year.
Hezbollah has little to no presence in the area that was targeted.
There was no immediate comment from Israel's military on the strike.
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Footage shared by Lebanese media showed emergency workers searching through the rubble of the completely flattened apartment building.
Body parts were scattered in the rubble, as the Lebanese army imposed a security cordon in the area.
Drone swarm
It comes a day after Hezbollah claimed responsibility for a drone attack on a military base in northern Israel which killed at least four Israeli soldiers and wounded scores of others.
The group said it fired a “swarm of drones” on a base in Binyamina belonging to the Israeli army’s Golani Brigade.
The attack marked the deadliest assault of that kind on an Israeli base since Israel launched its widespread bombing of Lebanon on 23 September.
Hezbollah says its attack was in retaliation for Israel’s bombing of central Beirut on Thursday, which killed at least 22 people.
The group then warned Israel that “what it witnessed today in southern Haifa is nothing compared to what awaits it if it decides to continue its aggression against our noble and dear people”.
Israel has killed over 2,300 people in Lebanon since clashes with Hezbollah started on 8 October 2023.
In recent days, Israeli forces have been widely condemned for their attack on United Nations peacekeepers (Unifil) in Lebanon.
EU countries, led by Italy, France and Spain, have thousands of troops in the 10,000-strong peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, which has come under attack from Israel's military.
Israel had ordered Unifil to evacuate its bases in the areas where it was operating. However, the peacekeeping mission has refused.
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