Thirteen airstrikes shake southwest Beirut | 16 killed in first airstrike on northern home sheltering displaced | 12 killed in bombing on southern village

Intensive Israeli airstrikes returned to target Beirut’s southern suburbs on Tuesday morning, with at least 13 missiles launched on the Lebanese capital in rapid succession.

The night before, warplanes had bombarded south Lebanon’s villages and conducted a rare air raid in the farthest north of the country that decimated a house full of displaced people, killing 16.

Residents of the capital’s southern suburbs were given only 40 minutes notice before Israel began its bombing campaign this morning. The Israeli military spokesperson issued new evacuation orders for residents in the Hadath, Haret Hreik, Ghobeiry and Laylaki neighborhoods shortly before 11 am in Lebanon’s timezone, with airstrikes beginning not long afterward. Heavy traffic hit Beirut as people rushed to evacuate the area prior to the strikes.

The night before, Israel launched a raid in Akkar Governorate, in northern Lebanon bordering Syria, bombing a house in Ain Yaqoub village and killing 16 people and injuring 11 more, according to the Lebanese Civil Defense. 

The majority of the victims were Lebanese people displaced from southern Lebanon, particularly from the Arabsalim village in Nabatieh Governorate, but also included some Syrian nationals, mayor of Ain Yaccoub Magdy Derbas told Mada Masr on Tuesday morning.

Mahmoud Hassan, the former mayor of Arabsalim village in south Lebanon, told Mada Masr that most of the area’s residents have been displaced to Beirut or Saida by Israel’s aggression, which has targeted the country’s south with dozens of air raids daily.

Only a few of the residents of Arabsalim remain in the village at the moment, according to Hassan, who said that some had fled further north in Lebanon, eventually taking refuge in the house in Ain Yaqoob before it was destroyed last night by Israeli bombing.

While Israeli strikes on northern Lebanon are less frequent than on the south or Beirut, Akkar had already suffered two waves of Israeli bombings before yesterday’s attack, one of which destroyed a bridge that served eight villages, as Akkar mayor Emad al-Labki told the media last week.

Labki noted at the time that the northern governorate has received nearly 70,000 displaced people since the start of the Israeli assault on Lebanon, including about 8,000 distributed among 94 schools temporarily as shelters, while the rest are staying in houses.

In the south on Monday night, an Israeli aerial raid targeted a house in Saksakiyeh village in the coastal district of Saida, killing at least 12 people, according to the civil defense crews.

Saksakiyeh mayor Ali Haidar told Mada Masr that women and children were among the victims of the strike, which came without warning, noting that the death toll may rise beyond 17 people as civil defense crews and paramedics from the Islamic Message Scouts Association, a paramedic and search and rescue agency affiliated with the Amal Movement, are still looking for more bodies under the rubble.

Haidar added that the targeted house belonged to a man who, along with his two sisters, were killed in a drone strike on Thursday near the Awali checkpoint in Saida.

The toll of the Israeli aggression on Lebanon since October 2023 has reached 3,243 killed and at least 14,134 injured, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry’s latest estimates.

In a meeting with Israeli military and security commanders last night, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz claimed that Israel has achieved victory over Hezbollah but stressed that military operations in Lebanon will continue. “There will be no ceasefire, and there will be no respite,” Katz said.

“Israel will not agree to any arrangement that does not guarantee Israel's right to enforce and prevent terrorism on its own and meet the goals of the war in Lebanon: disarming Hezbollah, pushing them beyond the Litani River and returning the residents of the north safely to their homes,” he added.

For its part, Hezbollah, which has launched daily rocket fire against Israeli forces attempting to invade the south and which has countered Israel’s claims that its arsenal is depleted, continued its fight back against the Israeli assault. 

On Monday, the group said it targeted a gathering of Israeli forces near the border village of Maroun al-Ras and another in a house on the outskirts of Kfar Kila, as well as a third gathering in the northern Israeli settlement of Avivim.

Eight more Israeli settlements were targeted by Hezbollah rockets throughout yesterday, with the Israeli military sharing footage of the damage of one of the attacks.

Yesterday also saw the Lebanese movement target five Israeli military bases with rocket and drone attacks north of Akka, south of Safed, east of Nahariya, and sites to both the north and south of Haifa.