Dozens of Israeli airstrikes pounded Lebanon late Friday and early Saturday, killing and injuring several people, Lebanon’s national news agency said, exposing the mounting strain on a truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The strikes mostly hit towns and villages in southern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold where Israel is occupying large swaths of territory and where tens of thousands of residents remain displaced. The Israeli military also issued new evacuation warnings on Saturday afternoon for several towns across southern Lebanon.
Many of Saturday’s strikes focused on areas in and around the coastal district of Tyre, emergency workers and doctors at a hospital in the area said. Shortly after midnight, an airstrike leveled a house in the town of Deir Qanoun an-Nahr in Tyre, killing four people, according to Lebanon’s state news agency. An Israeli drone also targeted a citrus grove in the town of Bazourieh, wounding several Syrian laborers who were working there, the agency said.
Another strike hit a building near Hiram Hospital, which the Israeli military had ordered evacuated, shattering windows and damaging parts of the hospital, including operating rooms, doctors at the hospital said in interviews. Hiram is one of the main functioning medical centers in Tyre. At least four newborns were evacuated safely from the hospital, according to the nursing supervisor, Mohammad Salem.
Saturday’s attacks come just a day after Israeli strikes killed six paramedics in two episodes in southern Lebanon within 24 hours, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Over 120 medics have been killed in the latest conflict, according to the ministry.
Another Israeli airstrike on Thursday damaged the three-story Tibnin hospital, a key medical facility operating near the region that Israel is occupying.