Death toll in Israeli strikes in central Gaza rises to 25 as Beirut suburb is pounded again

The Israeli military launched waves of deadly airstrikes across Lebanon and Gaza, killing at least 24 people in Lebanon’s northeast on Friday, the country’s state-run National News Agency reported.

Palestinians, meanwhile, recovered the bodies of 25 people killed in a barrage of Israeli attacks on central Gaza that began Thursday, hospital officials said.

It was another day of bloodshed both in Lebanon, where Israel stepped up airstrikes against Hezbollah in the northeast this week, and in Gaza, where Israel said it had targeted Hamas infrastructure near the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Despite growing pressure from the United States and others in the international community for a cease-fire in the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, Israeli strikes against the militant Hezbollah group are increasingly expanding beyond Lebanon’s periphery.

Israeli attacks that initially targeted smaller border villages in southern Lebanon, where the Iran-backed Hezbollah holds sway, have broadened to bigger urban hubs in recent weeks where the group — which is also a major political party and provider of social services — counts many supporters.

The intensified strikes on and around the northeastern city of Baalbek this week have prompted roughly 60,000 people to flee their homes, according to Hussein Haj Hassan, a Lebanese lawmaker representing the region.

Lebanon’s state National News Agency reported four airstrikes in different villages across the northeast that had largely been spared the worst of Israeli bombardment until last month. The agency reported that rescuers were still searching for survivors in Younine, a town in the Bekaa Valley, from the rubble of a targeted building that was believed to have housed 20 people.

Further attacks in the northeastern Baalbek-Hermel region killed eight people in the village of Amhaz and another two in the village of Taraya.

Israel’s military has said that its operation in Lebanon is targeting Hezbollah’s military infrastructure as the group continues firing rockets, drones and missiles into Israel. Rockets fired from Lebanon killed seven people in northern Israel on Thursday, including four Thai workers.

Israeli planes also pounded Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh overnight and early Friday, destroying dozens of buildings in several neighborhoods, according to the country’s news agency. The Israeli military said those attacks hit Hezbollah weapons manufacturing sites and command centers.

There was no word from the Lebanese officials on any casualty figures from the Dahiyeh strikes.

Lebanon’s Heath Ministry said more than 2,800 people have been killed and 13,000 wounded since Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began firing rockets almost daily into Israel, drawing retaliation.

The latest violence comes against the backdrop of the Biden administration’s renewed diplomatic push days before the U.S. election to reach temporary cease-fire deals between Israel, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

In Gaza, officials from the al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza said they continued to receive bodies from a barrage of Israeli airstrikes on Nuseirat camp that left 21 dead, including an 18-month-old and his 10-year-old sister.

Israeli strikes also hit a motorcycle in Zuwaida and a house in Deir al-Balah, killing four more people, the hospital officials said, bringing the overall death toll in Gaza to 25 on Friday. Within the last 24 hours, Gaza-based Health Ministry reported that 55 people had been killed and another 196 had been wounded in the battered enclave.

The Israeli military did not comment on the strikes outside Nuseirat camp. It said it was aware of reports of civilian casualties and was investigating.

Israel’s blistering offensive on the Gaza Strip has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians since October 7, 2023, say health officials inside Gaza who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. They say more than half of the dead are women and children.

Israel began bombarding Gaza after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 last year, when the militants killed roughly 1,200 people and took some 250 hostages back to Gaza.

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Frankel reported from Jerusalem. Bassem Mroue in Beirut, David Rising in Bangkok and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this story.