Seven people have been killed and more than 40 injured in Israeli airstrikes on the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Saturday, as Israel rejected claims that famine is imminent in northern Gaza.
Rescue workers were continuing to search for victims in the rubble, the ministry said.
Meanwhile an airstrike on Deir Qanoun Ras al-Ain in the Tyre district killed eight people, including seven paramedics, and injured 12 more, the ministry said.
The raids targeted gatherings of paramedics belonging to associations connected with Hezbollah, the ministry added.
The Lebanese state-run National News Agency (NNA) also reported around a dozen severe airstrikes in the southern suburbs of the capital city Beirut during the night after Israeli evacuation warnings.
The reports came after the Israeli military said it hit “command centres and a weapons manufacturing site, along with additional terrorist infrastructure belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization” in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh, considered to be a stronghold of the Iranian-backed militia.
Lebanese authorities have recorded more than 670 Israeli airstrikes across the country in the last seven days, which the Health Ministry said have killed more than 230 people and injured more than 800.
The count does not distinguish between civilians and members of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire since the October 7, 2023, attacks by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, with Israeli forces launching a ground offensive in southern Lebanon in late September of this year.
Further deaths in Gaza amid famine dispute
Israel’s assault on northern Gaza also continued on Saturday, with Palestinian sources reporting at least 11 killed in attacks on Gaza City and Beit Hanoun.
Medical organizations in the sealed-off coastal territory said five people were killed in the Shuja’iyya neighbourhood of Gaza City while waiting for aid.
The humanitarian situation in northern Gaza has deteriorated significantly in recent weeks amid a renewed Israeli offensive, with one resident telling dpa on Saturday: “No one cares about us.”
“We don’t know if we’ll survive,” Om Mohammed said.
A group of global food security experts has warned that famine is likely imminent in northern Gaza.
However, the Israeli military has rejected the claims, arguing that 11 trucks with food, water and medical equipment arrived in the area in recent days.
The aid, it said, was destined for remaining civilians in Beit Hanoun and the Jabalia refugee camp, which has seen heavy fighting.
In the latest fighting, Israeli ground troops “eliminated dozens of terrorists” and destroyed “a weapons storage facility” in Jabalia in northern Gaza, according to a post by the Israeli military on Telegram.
Israeli attacks were also reported from around the southern city of Rafah, where troops targeted militants and “terrorist infrastructure.”
At least 43,000 Palestinians have been killed in the ongoing war so far, according to the Hamas-controlled health authority in Gaza, which began after Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people in Israel and abducted some 250 more to Gaza.
Palestinian killed in West Bank
Also on Saturday, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah said Israeli forces killed a 25-year-old Palestinian man in the West Bank, adding that the Israeli army has not yet released his body.
According to Palestinian media, Israeli soldiers surrounded the man’s family house during the raid.
The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that Israeli forces shot the man dead, while another was seriously injured by bullet wounds to the chest.
The Israeli military said it had killed a terrorist in the operation.
The tense situation in the occupied West Bank has dramatically worsened since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
Israeli military operations, armed clashes and attacks by extremists have since killed 746 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the local Health Ministry.
