Authorities say Israeli attack killed 10 firefighters in Lebanon

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least 10 firefighters were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the border area in southern Lebanon.

A statement said firefighters were “ready to carry out a rescue mission” from a municipal building in Baraachit when it came under attack overnight.

Rescuers are still searching for people trapped under the rubble.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, but it said overnight that warplanes had attacked targets belonging to the armed group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

On Monday afternoon, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that Israeli aircraft had attacked more than 30 towns and villages around the southern coastal city of Tyre.

The BBC’s Orla Guerin, who is in Tyre, said some of the attack sites were in the hills near the border with Israel, but at least one hit a built-up area of ​​the city.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said at the time that they were conducting “widespread” attacks against Hezbollah in the south, as well as a “targeted” attack on the outskirts south of Beirut.

Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon also appears to be expanding, with the IDF saying a third division has joined the ground operation it launched six days ago to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure near the border gender.

The IDF also ordered the evacuation of 20 other communities in the south, including the coastal town of Naqoura, where the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon is headquartered.

Three weeks of Israeli onslaught and other attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 1,400 people, including 22 on Sunday, and displaced another 1.2 million, according to Lebanese authorities.

Hezbollah – a Shia Muslim political, military and social organization that holds significant power in Lebanon – remains defiant despite suffering a series of devastating blows in recent weeks, including the killing of leader and most of the top military commanders of this organization.

On Monday, the group asserted it was “confident… in our ability to resist Israeli aggression”.

The incident occurred hours after Hezbollah rockets struck the northern Israeli port city of Haifa and the town of Tiberias, causing damage and injuring nine people.

According to the IDF, another 135 rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel on Monday. Police said a road was damaged in the Lower Galilee region between Haifa and Tiberias.

The Israeli government – which considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization – has pledged to ensure the safety of tens of thousands of displaced residents returning to their homes near the Lebanese border after a year of cross-border fighting due to the war. Caused by Gaza.

Hostilities have steadily escalated since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of the Palestinians on October 8, 2023, a day after its ally Hamas’s deadly attack on southern Israel .

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting on Monday that “a counterattack against our enemies in Iran’s axis of evil is necessary to ensure our future and our security.”