Beirut: Israel launched dozens of intense airstrikes across Lebanon’s northeastern farming villages on Friday, killing at least 52 people and wounding scores more, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported.
In central Gaza, Palestinians recovered the bodies of 25 people killed in a barrage of Israeli aerial attacks that began Thursday, hospital officials said.
The latest violence comes against the backdrop of a renewed diplomatic push by United States President Joe Biden’s administration, days before the presidential election, to reach temporary cease-fire deals.
Israel’s emergency services said seven people were injured before dawn Saturday in an attack in the central town of Tira. Three projectiles crossed into Israel from Lebanon, Israel’s military said, and some were intercepted.
The Magen David Adom service said two of those injured were in moderate condition from the attack, and the others had milder injuries. A photo the service released showed damage to what appeared to be an apartment building.
Israel has stepped up its offensive against Hamas’ remaining fighters in Gaza, pulverising areas in the north and raising fears of worsening humanitarian conditions for civilians still there.
Israeli forces have recently shifted their attention to Hamas militants, who they say have regrouped in northern Gaza, renewing an offensive that has trapped tens of thousands of people under intense bombardment without enough food or water.
Israeli airstrikes have repeatedly hindered an emergency polio vaccination campaign, which the World Health Organization announced it planned to finally resume on Saturday, but only in Gaza City.
Towns further north, like Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, remain inaccessible as Israel tightens its siege.
The UN and other humanitarian organisations warned on Friday that “the situation unfolding in north Gaza is apocalyptic,” citing Israel’s denial of humanitarian aid to the area, military raids on hospitals, airstrikes on shelters, and obstruction of Palestinian rescue teams who struggle to help survivors after Israeli attacks.
In Lebanon, Israel has broadened its strikes in recent weeks to bigger urban hubs, like the town of Baalbek, home to 80,000 people, after initially targeting smaller border villages in the south, where Hezbollah conducts operations. Iran-backed Hezbollah doubles as a major political party and provider of social services in Lebanon.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, drones, and missiles from Lebanon into Israel in solidarity with Hamas immediately after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza.
The yearlong cross-border fighting boiled over to full-blown war on Oct. 1, when Israeli forces launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon for the first time since 2006.
