At least 20 people were killed Tuesday in an Israeli bombing targeting an apartment building south of Beirut, the health ministry reported Tuesday. “Israeli enemy raid in Barja left 20 dead”the ministry said in an upwardly revised assessment, adding that clearance and rescue operations were still in progress.
Flames were emerging from the targeted building in the evening, according to the Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent on site. Several families living in the area fled in panic. This is the second Israeli bombing on Tuesday against this region located outside the strongholds of Hezbollah, against whom Israel entered war on September 23.
Earlier, a strike also targeting a residential building in the town of Jiyeh, near Barja, left one person dead, according to the ministry. A security source explained to AFP that an apartment belonging to Hezbollah had been targeted. In the south and east of Lebanon, where Hezbollah is established, several localities were targeted by Israeli aircraft and artillery, according to the Lebanese National Information Agency (NNA). Hezbollah, for its part, claimed to have launched drones, rockets and missiles against northern Israel, and to have fired on Israeli soldiers in the border regions of southern Lebanon.
