BBC:
At least 40 people were killed in Israeli strikes in eastern Lebanon on Wednesday, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
An Israeli official said the strikes, in the governorates of Baalbek and Bekaa, targeted operatives of the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s culture minister said one of the strikes also seriously damaged an Ottoman-era building in the vicinity of the Roman ruins in the city of Baalbek, which is a Unesco World Heritage site.
Israeli strikes also hit southern Beirut on Wednesday, after the IDF issued evacuation warnings. The military said it struck Hezbollah command centres, weapons stores and other infrastructure.
A later IDF warning covered four neighbourhoods in southern Beirut including an area near Lebanon’s international airport, which has continued to operate despite Israel’s air strikes on the capital city.
Soon after, pictures showed a large fireball and thick black smoke rising into the night sky above Beirut.
Meanwhile, a rocket fired by Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon killed an Israeli man near a kibbutz in northern Israel, paramedics said.
Lebanon’s Civil Defence agency has also said the bodies of 30 people were recovered from a four-storey apartment building hit by an Israeli strike on Tuesday evening that destroyed one side of the building and sparked a fire.
The building, in Barja, a predominantly Sunni Muslim coastal town south of Beirut, was reportedly housing displaced people.
The Israeli military said it had struck “terror infrastructure” belonging to Hezbollah.
A man who lived on one of the upper floors of the apartment building that was hit said his son and wife were injured by falling masonry.
“These rocks that you see here weigh 100kg, they fell on a 13kg kid,” Moussa Zahran told Reuters news agency as he surveyed the damage.
“I removed [the rocks] and… handed my son to the civil defence through the window. I carried my wife and came downstairs and got out behind the building… I thank God, glory be to Him, for this miracle.”
An Irish Times correspondent cited a member of the civil defence at the scene as saying that those killed whose bodies were found complete included seven women and three children – a seven-month-old baby and two girls aged seven and 12.
Neighbours also said the building was housing displaced people who had fled from other areas, she added.
There was no evacuation warning ahead of the strike, according to Reuters.
The Lebanese health ministry gave a preliminary death toll of 20 from the strike on Barja late on Tuesday but did not provide an updated figure on Wednesday.
