At least 51 people were killed and 223 injured in new Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon on Wednesday, Lebanese authorities said.
“Around 40,000 people have sought refuge in shelters across the country due to ongoing Israeli attacks,” Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad told a news conference in the capital, Beirut.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health announced that four people were killed and 38 injured in Israeli airstrikes in Baalbek-Hermel province in eastern Lebanon.
“In the Israeli attacks in the cities of Tebnine and Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon, five more people were killed and 27 wounded,” the ministry’s statement added.
It is added that three people were killed and 13 wounded in the attack on the southern city of Qana, the ministry said.
Israeli warplanes also hit the southern town of Joun, killing four people and injuring several others, the state-run National News Agency reported.
Three more people lost their lives and nine were injured in a second airstrike on the town of Maaysrah in Keserwan in northeastern Lebanon.
It is the first time that Israeli warplanes have attacked Keserwan since the outbreak of cross-border clashes with Hezbollah on October 8 last year. The area is inhabited by Shiites.
The Israeli military said it had hit more than 280 Hezbollah-linked targets in Lebanon since Wednesday morning.
The army called two reserve brigades to the northern border with Lebanon early Wednesday morning.
Israel has launched waves of deadly airstrikes in Lebanon since Monday morning that have killed nearly 610 people and wounded more than 2,000, according to Lebanese health authorities.
The cross-border clashes between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah began after the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, in which about 41,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed, AA writes.
