UPDATE - Israeli airstrikes target southern Lebanon, destroy historic mosque

UPDATES WITH MORE DETAILS

By Anadolu staff

In a series of pre-dawn airstrikes on Sunday, Israeli warplanes targeted multiple locations in southern Lebanon, causing significant destruction, according to the Lebanese National News Agency.

At approximately 3:45 a.m., an airstrike leveled the historic old mosque in the center of the town of Kfar Tibnit, completely destroying the structure, the agency reported.

Earlier, at around 12:15 a.m., another airstrike targeted a three-story building next to Ghabris station on the Zefta-Nabatieh highway, also destroying it, it added.

The strike caused the closure of the road as debris from the building blocked access. The same building had been previously struck in an air raid a week earlier, partially damaging it.

A third airstrike was carried out at approximately 1:30 a.m., this time targeting the town of Aita al-Shaab. No further details on casualties or additional damage were immediately available.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah announced on Sunday that its fighters successfully thwarted an Israeli infiltration attempt in the town of Ramiya, located in Lebanon’s Nabatieh Governorate.

In a statement, Hezbollah said: "Islamic Resistance fighters detonated an explosive device against an Israeli force attempting to infiltrate the Tel al-Mador area in Ramiya at 4:45 a.m. on Sunday, inflicting casualties.”

In separate statements, Hezbollah said that it targeted Israeli military positions and soldiers in northern Israel on Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Additional strikes were reported on Israeli military sites in Zarit, Shumra, and Ma'iliya, as well as in the Upper Galilee, where Hezbollah launched artillery and missile barrages.

Separately, the Israeli army claimed it intercepted five rockets launched from Lebanon toward northern Israel, including the Haifa Bay area and the Upper and Western Galilee.

In a statement, the Israeli army stated that “five rockets launched from Lebanon were successfully intercepted by the air force."

Israeli Channel 12 reported that at least 10 rockets were launched towards Haifa, with most intercepted. No injuries were reported.

Earlier in the day, sirens rang across northern Israel, from border-adjacent settlements to Haifa. Since midnight, Channel 12 reported that approximately 35 rockets had been fired from Lebanon into the western Galilee.

Israel has mounted massive airstrikes across Lebanon against, what it claims, Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23, killing at least 1,437 people, injuring over 4,123 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 a ground incursion into southern Lebanon.

* Writing by Ikram Kouachi in Ankara