THE Lebanese Health Ministry reported at 4.00pm yesterday afternoon that 274 citizens had been killed in Israeli airstrikes which began at 6.30am, including 21 children and 39 women, plus 1,024 wounded.
Hezbollah fired back in what it described as a ‘war of reckoning,’ with heavy explosions heard in the Israeli port city of Haifa.
Israeli airstrikes targeted homes across south Lebanon, with intense bombing in the regions of Tyre, Bint Jbeil, Nabatiyeh, Iqlim Al-Tuffah, Jizzine and Western Bekaa.
At least three waves of intense strikes, described as ‘fire belts’ and ‘carpet bombing’, hit dozens of villages and towns.
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said: ‘The continuing Israeli aggression on Lebanon is a war of extermination in every sense of the word and a destructive plan that aims to destroy Lebanese villages and towns.’
For his part, the head of telecoms company Ogero, Imad Kreidieh, said that Lebanon received more than 80,000 suspected Israeli call attempts asking people to evacuate their areas.
Such calls were ‘psychological warfare to make havoc and chaos’, he said.
The Lebanese ministry issued a statement asking all hospitals in south and east Lebanon districts to stop all non-essential surgery in order to make space to treat the wounded due to the expanding Israeli aggression on Lebanon.
The Lebanese Hezbollah Resistance Movement expanded its counterattacks on Israeli settlements and military sites, in response to the latest Israeli airstrikes on the southern Lebanese villages which have injured dozens of people and displaced thousands.
Hezbollah responded by shelling Israeli military sites in Safad, Tiberias and other areas in the Galilee.
They announced that their missiles had hit the Israeli army’s Northern Command and the Galilee military base, and affected the Raphael military industries complexes in northern Haifa.
Israel’s channel 13 said five Israelis were wounded after a missile landed near the Golani junction in the lower Galilee.
Israeli media also reported that sirens were heard in the Golan, Safad and the vicinity of Nazareth, noting that many missiles fell in the upper Galilee and the Nazareth district.
