Israel pounds Beirut suburbs as Lebanon says 31 dead nationwide

Israeli strikes pummelled south Beirut on Monday, Lebanese official media said, while health authorities reported 31 people killed across the country, most of them in the south.

Israel’s military said in a statement Monday afternoon it had hit “approximately 25...targets” belonging to Hezbollah, including in Nabatiyeh, Baalbek, the Bekaa Valley and southern Beirut and the city’s outskirts.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported a fourth wave of Israeli raids in south Beirut on Monday evening, saying “enemy warplanes launched strikes on (the) Haret Hreik and Shiyah” districts.

The attacks came after a weekend of heavy raids in the area, despite ongoing international ceasefire efforts.

Early Saturday, a deadly strike on central Beirut’s densely populated Basta neighbourhood killed at least 29 people, the health ministry said.

Israel’s army said Monday it had struck a Hezbollah command centre there, though an official with the group denied reports that a senior member had been targeted.

The NNA reported Israeli strikes on Tyre and Nabatiyeh after Israel issued evacuation warnings for parts of the main southern cities.

Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes killed at least 31 people on Monday.

A statement listed “the casualty toll of Israeli enemy strikes on a number of Lebanese cities and towns” in the east, south and near Beirut, with most people killed in the south and four killed in the east.

The NNA also reported “a drone strike that targeted a residential complex” in a Druze-majority town on the outskirts of Beirut, without prior evacuation calls.