Israeli warplanes struck a residential apartment in Ayto in the Zgharta district on Monday, the first such attack targeting the north Lebanon town. According to the Ministry of Public Health, the preliminary death toll has risen to 19, with four injured. Rescue operations are still ongoing.
The targeted apartment was leased to displaced families from south Lebanon, including a member of Hezbollah whose identity was not known, according to unconfirmed local media reports.
The National News Agency (NNA) said Israel targeted a "residential apartment" in the Christian-majority area, far from Hezbollah strongholds.
So far, Israeli strikes have mainly been concentrated in predominantly Shia areas, where Hezbollah built its power base in a state wracked by sectarianism.
The Lebanese army imposed a security cordon in the area, where the strike had also sparked a fire.
In another development, Israeli Arabic-speaking spokesperson Avichay Adraee declared on the X platform that the Israeli army “eliminated the commander of the anti-tank missile system” in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit and attacked the platforms used to launch rockets towards northern and central Israel.
The targeted person was identified as Mohamad Kamel Naim. He was killed in raids on the area of Nabatiyeh.
Following Hezbollah's Sunday night operation on a military training camp in Binyamina, south of Haifa, Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon and the Beqaa region grew in intensity on Monday, while a cautious calm remains in Beirut's southern suburb.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told his US counterpart Lloyd Austin that Israel would deliver a strong response to Hezbollah after its attack on the army base, in which four Israeli soldiers were killed and dozens wounded.
Gallant spoke to Austin overnight and “highlighted the severity of the attack and the forceful response that would be taken against Hezbollah,” the minister's office said in a statement.
In addition to south Lebanon, a series of Israeli air raids also struck several towns and villages in northern Beqaa and the Baalbeck district in the east of the country.
Two people were reported dead in an airstrike on a house in Khirbet Selm in the south, according to NNA. It also reported the deaths of a pharmacist, his three children and a relative after the Israeli army targeted their home in Mifdoun on Sunday. His wife survived.
Meanwhile, Israeli drones flew incessantly over Beirut and other regions, after four days of radio silence.
For its part, the Iran-backed group claimed responsibility for several attacks on Monday, including one that targeted an “Israeli infantry force attempting to infiltrate the outskirts of Maroun al-Ras” in south Lebanon. The group said that “fierce clashes continued in the town of Aita al-Shaab using machine guns, rockets, and artillery shells.”
Hezbollah also claimed to have attacked the Kiryat Shmona settlement, an armored personnel carrier in Aita al-Shaab, and two gatherings of Israeli forces in the Ramot Naftali settlement and Rwaissat Al-Alam in the Kfarchouba hills.
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