UPDATE - 13 killed in fresh Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon

UPDATES DEATH TOLL, ADDS CHANGES

By Wassim Seifeddine

BEIRUT (AA) – At least 13 Lebanese, including children, were killed and others injured in fresh Israeli airstrikes on houses in southern and eastern Lebanon on Thursday, local media said.

State news agency NNA said nine people, including children, lost their lives when an Israeli warplane hit a building in Karak in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon.

Red Cross and civil defense teams are searching the rubble for survivors, the broadcaster said.

Two more people were killed when a warplane hit residential buildings in the southern town of Maifodoun, the same source said.
Israeli fighter jets also carried out airstrikes in Sohmor in southern Lebanon, killing two people.

Another strike targeted the town of Meidoun in western Bekaa, causing significant damage to homes, NNA said.

Nine airstrikes were also reported in Hermel in northeastern Lebanon near the border with Syria.

No information was yet available about casualties.

Israel has mounted massive airstrikes across Lebanon against what it claims Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23, killing at least 1,323 people, injuring over 3,700 others, and displacing more than 1.2 million people.

The aerial campaign was an escalation in yearlong cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of Tel Aviv’s brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip that has killed over 42,000 people, mostly women and children, since a Hamas attack last year.

Despite international warnings that the Middle East region was on the brink of a regional war amid Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, Tel Aviv expanded the conflict by launching on Oct. 1 a ground invasion into southern Lebanon.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala and Mohammad Sio