Qana: Israeli airstrikes pounded areas across Lebanon, killing at least 27 people over the past 24 hours, officials said Wednesday, including more than a dozen in a southern town where Israeli bombardments in previous conflicts are seared into local memory.
Elsewhere in the south, a city’s mayor was among the dead in a strike that Lebanese officials said targeted a meeting to coordinate relief efforts. The Israeli military said they were targeting a Hezbollah commander in the strikes late Tuesday in the southern town of Qana, where 15 people were killed.
Photos and video of the scene showed several flattened buildings and others with their top floors collapsed. Rescue workers carried away the remains of dead people and used a bulldozer to remove rubble, as they searched for more victims.
Israel said the target was Jalal Mustafa Hariri, a Hezbollah commander in charge of the Qana area. Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, meanwhile accused Israel of “intentionally targeting” a municipal council meeting to discuss relief efforts in Nabatiyeh, where six people were killed.
“What solution can be hoped for in light of this reality?” he asked in a statement. Strikes continued across Lebanon, including in the eastern Bekaa Valley and Nabatiyeh, in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli military said it targeted Hezbollah command centres and weapons facilities that had been embedded in civilian areas.
Lebanon's crisis response unit recorded 138 airstrikes and shellings Wednesday. The Israeli military said Hezbollah launched more than 90 projectiles toward Israel on Wednesday. Four civilians were wounded in the strikes, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service.
