Israeli airstrikes on Deir Billa, Barja, Maaysara kill 9 | Hezbollah strikes hit Akka, building in Haifa | Funeral for 5 killed in Baissariyeh

Israeli airstrikes targeted homes in Barja, located on the Lebanese coastline around 30 kilometers south of Beirut, and Maaysara and Deir Billa, around 30 and 50 kilometers north of the capital, respectively, on Saturday, killing nine people, according to preliminary figures issued by the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Saturday’s airstrikes represent a deepening of the Israeli military’s bombardment of Lebanon, which has been ongoing every day for almost a month, with the three districts stretching from south to north along Lebanon’s coastline generally less affected by Israel’s daily airstrike campaigns than other areas in the east and south.

Five people were killed and 14 injured in Maaysara in the Keserwan Governorate, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, which also said that four more were killed in the bombing on Barja, an area that lies north of Saida and to which many of those displaced from the country’s south have relocated in recent weeks.

Government officials in Lebanon have said that around a million people in the country have been displaced by Israel’s aggression on the country.

The house bombed in Deir Billa, which is in the Batroun district further north, was being rented by a displaced family, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency. The ministry had not issued a casualty count from the strike at the time of writing. Initial images emerging from the Deir Billa bombing showed two bodies wrapped in blankets and civil defense workers rushing to transfer at least one person who was injured in the strike into an ambulance.

Funerals were also held on Saturday for the victims of an airstrike the night before on Baissariyeh, a village to Saida’s south.

Five people were killed, of whom four were children, Baissariyeh mayor Nazih Eid told Mada Masr on Saturday. Eid said that civil defense teams recovered the bodies of Sheikh Abbas al-Shami’s children — namely Naseem, Hassan, Doha, and Fatima — from the rubble of the building, as well as that of Hussein, the Sheikh’s brother, who was a soldier in the Lebanese army.

The Sheikh and his wife are in intensive care after sustaining serious injuries in the attack, Eid said.

Eid said that Israel has launched 17 raids on Baissariyeh since the outbreak of the war, all of which were on residential homes and public facilities.

Hezbollah continued to launch volleys of missiles into Israeli territory and use artillery to target troops and vehicles attempting to invade south Lebanon. A drone attack launched by Hezbollah on Haifa on Friday evening struck a building in Herzliya, according to Israeli media, while a volley of rockets that targeted Akka on Saturday injured two, according to Israeli reports.

Clashes continued to rage in the south, where the Occupation intensively bombed the border village of Aita al-Shaab, while Hezbollah announced multiple operations it conducted, including on Israeli soldiers at the border villages of Ramiyah and Balida further west, where intense clashes had taken place on Friday.

The United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) issued a statement on Saturday saying that another of its troops was injured the day prior in Naqoura, which lies on Lebanon’s southwestern border, by gunfire of which the origin was unclear.

UNIFIL also noted that its position at Ramiyah, to Naqoura’s east, was substantially damaged due to explosions caused by continuous shelling in the area.

A diplomatic ripple that started on Friday in the wake of the injury of four UNIFIL soldiers by Israeli fire last week widened on Saturday.

Speakers at a United Nations Security Council meeting stressed the need for an "immediate ceasefire" across the Blue Line.

The chief of staff of Ireland’s military, Seán Clancy, whose country has 370 troops in the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, said the incident must have been deliberate. “This is direct fire, and from a military perspective, this is not an accident; it is a direct action.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken followed his call on Friday to Amal Movement head and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri with a call to Lebanese Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati. The US’s special envoy for Lebanon, Amos Hochstein, also spoke with Mikati, whose office described the calls as part of serious efforts toward a ceasefire, stressing Lebanon's commitment to implementing Resolution 1701 and gaining Hezbollah's approval of it.

Since Israel launched airstrikes on Lebanon in October 2023, 2,255 people have been killed and over 10,500 injured, the Health Ministry said on Saturday.