Lebanon says 23 killed in Israeli strikes on Wednesday

Israeli strikes kill 23 in Lebanon, including rare attacks on Hezbollah strongholds, escalating conflict with casualties and destruction.

Lebanon said 23 people were killed and dozens injured in Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Wednesday (September 25, 2024), the third day of major Israeli raids in the country as fighting with Hezbollah has intensified.

Hezbollah earlier said it had fired a ballistic missile that reached the central Israeli city of Tel Aviv for the first time before being intercepted.

The attacks in Lebanon included two rare strikes on the villages of Joun and Maaysra — mountain areas outside Hezbollah's traditional strongholds in the country's south and east.

Fatima from Maaysra, declining to provide her surname, said the targeted two-storey building was her relative's home and housed people displaced from south Lebanon.

"They bombed an area full of displaced people," she said. "Nowhere is safe anymore."

An AFP correspondents at the site of the strike saw rescuers searching for survivors in the rubble of the targeted building and listening for any signs of life under the wreckage.

The village was filled with Hezbollah and Lebanese flags, he said.