At least 9 killed, 28 injured in Israeli attacks on Mt. Lebanon

By Wassim Seifeddine

BEIRUT (AA) - At least nine people were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes on Mt. Lebanon on Saturday, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.

The first strike targeted an apartment in a residential building in the town of Barja, killing four people and injuring 14 others, a ministry statement said.

The airstrike marked the first Israeli attack on the town since the onset of the onslaught, according to local media.

The second airstrike hit a home in the town of Maaysrah, killing five people and injuring 14 others, the Health Ministry said.

Israel has mounted massive airstrikes across Lebanon against, what it claims, Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23, killing at least 1,411 people, injuring over 3,970 others, and displacing more than 1.34 million people.

The aerial campaign is an escalation from a year of cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of its offensive on the Gaza Strip, in which Israel has killed nearly 42,200 people, most of them women and children, since a Hamas attack last year.

Despite international warnings that the Mideast was on the brink of a regional war amid Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, it expanded the conflict on Oct. 1 by launching an incursion into southern Lebanon.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala