At least 21 people were killed and eight others injured in a rare Israeli airstrike in northern Lebanon, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.
The attack targeted a residential building in Aitou, a predominantly Christian village, far from the area where the Israeli military has carried out thousands of attacks against armed Shia Muslim groups. Hezbollah.
Residents said a family recently displaced by the war lived there.
The Israeli army did not immediately comment on this information. But it comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “continue to mercilessly attack Hezbollah everywhere in Lebanon – including Beirut”.
“Everything is according to operational considerations. We have proven this recently and we will continue to prove it in the coming days,” he added.
He spoke during a visit to a military base in northern Israel, where a drone launched by an Iran-backed group killed four Israeli soldiers and injured dozens on Sunday night.
The army said it was investigating how the drone evaded sophisticated air defense systems and attacked the Golani Brigade training base near the town of Binyamina.
It was one of Hezbollah’s deadliest attacks on Israel in more than a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza.
Hezbollah said it was a response to deadly Israeli attacks in Lebanon, which the country’s Health Ministry said had killed nearly 1,700 people in the past month.
Most of Israel’s airstrikes in the past week have targeted the Shia-majority region in the south and the Bekaa Valley in the east – areas where Hezbollah is strong.
Aitou, a Maronite Christian community located in the mountains near the northwestern coastal city of Tripoli, is not likely to be attacked.
“Oh Mother Mary,” one man gasped as he walked through the devastation of the village.
Amid the smoke and dust, bodies could be seen on the ground.
Residents said there was no warning, just a single large explosion.
However, they also said some families displaced by the war in the South had recently moved to Aitou and the affected house had been rented to new tenants just two weeks ago.
A Lebanese security source told AFP news agency that the building “was targeted immediately after a man arrived in a car”.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said it was conducting DNA testing to determine the identities of the remains found by first responders at the scene.
Also on Monday, the Israeli military said an attack in the southern Nabatieh area killed the commander of an anti-tank unit of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force.
Hezbollah has not commented on this report.
The army also said it attacked Hezbollah launchers used to fire several rockets into central and northern Israel on Monday.
According to the military, most of the missiles were intercepted or fell in open areas.
A woman was slightly injured by a barrage of 15 rockets fired toward the northern town of Karmiel.
Israeli police also said debris from an interception fell in the Holon area, south of Tel Aviv, without causing any injuries or damage.
