BEIRUT –
At least two air strikes hit near the town of Ghaziyeh on Lebanon’s coast around 60 km (37 miles) north of the border with Israel on Monday, according to witnesses in the area.
The witnesses heard several loud booms and saw two thick black columns of smoke emanating from around the town.
Lebanon’s state media said the strikes were Israeli and that one of them hit a car.
In response to a query from Reuters, the Israeli military said it was “checking.”
Israel has been carrying out air strikes along the border area in south Lebanon against the armed group Hezbollah, which has fired rockets across the frontier. Israel has carried out strikes only rarely further north of the frontier zone.
Black smoke and flames rise from a burning warehouse, attacked by Israeli strikes, at an industrial district, in the southern coastal town of Ghazieh, Lebanon, Monday, Feb. 19, 2024. Israel’s air force carried out at least two airstrikes near the southern port city of Sidon in one of the largest attacks near a major city, state media reported. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
More than 170 Hezbollah fighters and nearly three dozen civilians have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since Hezbollah launched rockets onto Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas, according to Hezbollah’s announced figures and a Reuters count of civilian deaths .
Hamas fighters launched an attack on Israel on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage into the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli figures. Israel’s air, land and sea bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 28,000 people since then, Palestinian health officials say.
Last week, two sets of Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon killed 10 civilians and several Hezbollah fighters, including a commander in the group’s elite Radwan force.
Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Israel would pay “in blood” for the killings of civilians.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Lebanon would “pay a heavy price” if diplomatic means failed to remove Hezbollah from the border zone.
