An Israeli strike on a village north of Beirut killed at least 20 people and wounded six others on Sunday morning, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
It said that rescue workers were still searching the rubble after the strike in Almat, in the Jbeil district on the Lebanese coast, and that three children were among the dead.
Photographs from the scene showed a bulldozer on a steep hillside scooping piles of debris from at least one building that appeared to have been destroyed, while emergency workers also picked through the wreckage.
There was no immediate comment from Israel’s military about the strike in the Jbeil district, which is around 18 miles northeast of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
The Israeli military has been widening its campaign against Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, across Lebanon in recent weeks.
The operations against Hezbollah were initially focused on southern Lebanon, with the stated aim of crippling the group’s ability to fire rockets across the border into Israel. But they have expanded to include cities and towns across Lebanon, including places far from that border — like the Jbeil district.
Another target of the widening campaign has been the Bekaa Valley in northeastern Lebanon, which is home to the historic city of Baalbek. Israeli strikes killed 20 people in Baalbek and the towns around it on Saturday, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Baalbek, in northeastern Lebanon, has been hit repeatedly in recent weeks. Dozens of people have been killed and most of the city’s population has fled.
The Israeli military said it had struck “Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure sites” near the port city of Tyre and near Baalbek on Saturday.
Lebanon’s health ministry cited five separate deadly incidents in Baalbek and the surrounding area on Saturday, including one in which 11 people were killed. In a statement on Saturday night, it added that 14 people were wounded. The ministry gave few details of the attacks and did not say whether the casualties were civilians or Hezbollah fighters.
Hezbollah’s cross-border attacks have persisted even as Israel’s campaign has intensified. The group fired 70 projectiles — likely missiles or drones — across the frontier on Saturday and 10 on Sunday, according to Israel’s military. Many were intercepted by Israel’s air defenses or fell in open areas, it said.
The fighting has driven around one fifth of Lebanon’s population of around 5.3 million from their homes, according to the Lebanese government.
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