Lebanon, Gaza and Syria hit by deadly Israeli strikes, reports say
By Mia Alberti, Charbel Mallo, Tim Lister, Ibrahim Dahman, Eve Brennan and Lauren Said-Moorhouse, CNN
(CNN) — More than 80 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon, northern Gaza and Syria since late Saturday, according to reports.
The National News Agency (NNA) reported airstrikes on the town of Almat in central Lebanon on Sunday. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said 20 people were killed there, including three children. Video from the scene shows that at least one building was reduced to rubble, with heavy machinery trying to remove the debris.
The local member of parliament, Simon Abi Ramia, said: “The targeted house belongs to one of the well-known residents of the area, and it is possible that it received displaced people.”
Three people were killed in a strike on Mashghara, a town in south-central Lebanon, and an air raid was carried out on the town of Debaal in the Tyre district of southern Lebanon, the agency added, while “intermittent Israeli artillery shelling continues on the town of Khiam.”
At least 2,513 people have been killed and 11,719 injured in Lebanon since September 16, when Israel stepped up its campaign against Hezbollah, according to a CNN tally of Lebanese health ministry statements.
The latest strikes follow attacks on more than a dozen separate locations in Lebanon since late Saturday.
The highest number of casualties came in an air strike on what NNA said was a civil defense center affiliated with the Islamic Al-Rissala Scouts Association in the town of Deir Qanoun.
Seventeen people were killed in the strike, NNA said, adding rescue teams were continuing search operations in the rubble. Video from the town showed extensive destruction.
Five people were killed in an airstrike on the town of Hanawaih, and listed strikes on buildings in nearly a dozen other locations. Additionally, artillery shelling hit the towns of Majdal Zoun, Tair Harfa, al-Dhaira, and elsewhere.
The Israeli military said Saturday that airstrikes had been carried out in the areas of Tyre and further north in Baalbek.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said late Saturday that the air force had “eliminated dozens of Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon over the past day.”
The IDF said Sunday that rockets continued to be fired from southern Lebanon. “Approximately ten projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory. Some of the projectiles were intercepted and the rest fell in open areas,” it said. No injuries were reported.
Separately in northern Gaza, at least 41 people died when Israeli strikes hit two homes early on Sunday morning, according to the director general of the Ministry of Health in the enclave.
Dr. Muneer Alboursh said one of the homes was in Jabalya, while the other was in Gaza City. He added that at least half of those killed were children.
International NGO Save the Children said in a post on X that parents, children and grandchildren were among those killed in Israeli strikes on the Jabalya residence.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had struck “a terrorist infrastructure site in the area of Jabalya” in response to CNN’s request for comment.
“These terrorists posed a threat to IDF troops operating in the area. The details are under review,” the Israeli military said, adding “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of aerial surveillance and precise intelligence” prior to Sunday’s strike.
CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment on the reported strike on the house in Gaza City.
Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, said the hospital had received “many distressed calls from people, among them those still trapped under the rubble who we could not assist.”
“The catastrophic conditions continue at Kamal Adwan Hospital in besieged northern Gaza,” Safiya said in a video recorded on Sunday and posted to X by Alboursh.
The reported strikes in Gaza come as a deadline from the United States for Israel to improve humanitarian conditions in the enclave looms. Last month, the Biden administration asked Israel for “urgent and sustained actions” for more aid to enter the strip within the next 30 days or risk violating US laws governing foreign military assistance.
A World Health Organization report on the availability of food in Gaza concluded Friday that there was “a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip,” where many of the recent Israeli operations have focused.
The report cited UN data that the number of aid shipments into the Gaza Strip was now lower than at any time over the past year.
The Israeli agency that handles the transfer of aid to Gaza rejected the claims, saying such reports in the past “have been systematically based on organizations with vested interests and partial, inaccurate knowledge.”
In Syria, at least seven civilians were killed and 20 injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a residential building in the Sayyida Zainab area of the Damascus countryside, Syrian state news agency SANA reported Sunday, citing a Syrian regime military source.
SANA said women and children were among those killed and that private properties were damaged.
CNN has contacted the IDF for comment but has not received a response.
Social media videos verified by CNN show damaged buildings in Sayyida Zainab, with rubble strewn across the street. One video filmed from a building shows damage to one of the upper floors of a structure across the street. The video then reveals damage and rubble on the ground floor of the building the video is filmed from.
The Sayyida Zainab area, south of Damascus city, is known to have a Hezbollah presence and has come under Israeli attack in the past. On November 4, SANA reported Israeli strikes in Sayyida Zainab the same day the IDF said Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck Hezbollah intelligence infrastructure in the Damascus area.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN’s Abeer Salman, Michael Schwartz, Tamar Michaelis, Eyad Kourdi and Benjamin Brown contributed reporting.
