Israeli attacks killed 21 people, including in the city of Qana

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QANA, Lebanon – Israeli airstrikes hit areas across Lebanon, killing at least 21 people, officials said Wednesday, including a dozen in a southern city where Israeli bombing during previous conflicts has left a deep impression on the local community.

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Elsewhere in the south, a city's mayor was among the victims of a strike that Lebanese officials said was aimed at a meeting to coordinate the relief effort.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment on Tuesday's attacks on the southern city of Qana, which killed 15 people. Associated Press photos and video from the scene showed several flattened buildings and others with the top floors collapsed. Rescuers took away the remains of the dead and used a bulldozer to remove the rubble, looking for more victims.

In 1996, Israeli artillery shelling on a United Nations compound housing hundreds of displaced people in Qana killed at least 100 civilians and injured many others, including four UN peacekeepers. During the 2006 war, an Israeli attack on an apartment building killed nearly thirty people, including a third of them children. Israel then said it hit a Hezbollah rocket launcher behind the building.

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“Kana always gets its share,” Mayor Mohammed Krasht told the AP, referring to the city's grim history.

Meanwhile, Lebanon's interim Prime Minister Najib Mikati accused Israel of “deliberately selecting a target” at a city council meeting in Nabatiyeh to discuss relief efforts, and said the international community was “deliberately silent” on Israeli attacks that killed civilians.

“What solution can we count on in light of this reality?” – he asked in a statement.

The Israeli military said Wednesday's attacks targeted Hezbollah command centers and weapons facilities that were placed in civilian areas of Nabatiyeh during Wednesday's attacks, without providing evidence.

Israel also resumed shelling in Beirut's southern suburbs after a six-day pause, hitting what it said was a weapons warehouse under an apartment building, without providing evidence. The military warned residents to evacuate ahead of the strike and there were no reports of casualties.

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Israel resumes attacks on Beirut

The attacks on southern Beirut came after Mikati said the United States had assured him that Israel would limit its attacks on the capital.

Hezbollah has a strong presence in southern Beirut, known as Dahiyeh, which is also a residential and commercial area where large numbers of civilians and people unaffiliated with the militant group live.

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Before the Beirut strike, the Israeli military posted an evacuation warning on the social media platform X. An Associated Press photographer observed three airstrikes in the area, the first of which occurred less than an hour after the announcement.

According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, which said at least six people were killed and 43 injured, there were more than half a dozen strikes in the city and surrounding areas in Nabatiyeh, and rescue operations are still ongoing. The city's mayor, Ahmad Kahil, was among the dead, provincial governor Huwaida Turk told The Associated Press.

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Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on October 8, 2023, in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group Hamas after a surprise Hamas attack on southern Israel sparked the Gaza War.

A year of low-level fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border escalated into all-out war last month, and Israel invaded Lebanon in early October. Israeli airstrikes killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of his senior commanders, and Israel has vowed to continue the offensive until its citizens can safely return to communities near the border.

According to Lebanon's Ministry of Health, around 2,300 people have died in Lebanon since October last year, including more than three-quarters last month. About 1.2 million people died as a result of the fighting in Lebanon.

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Hezbollah's rocket attacks, which have expanded in scope and intensity over the past month, have driven some 60,000 Israelis from their homes in the north. The attacks killed nearly 60 people in Israel, about half of them soldiers.

Hezbollah has said it will continue attacks until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, but that seems increasingly distant after months of negotiations brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar have stalled.

Palestinians claim that 350 bodies were recovered as a result of the Israeli operation in Gaza

Israel is still at war in Gaza more than a year after the Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 250. About 100 prisoners are still held, about a third of whom are presumed dead.

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For over a week, Israel has been conducting a major operation in Jabaliya, an urban refugee camp in the north of the territory, which dates back to the 1948 war related to the creation of Israel. Israeli forces repeatedly returned to Jabaliya and other areas after determining that Hamas fighters had regrouped.

According to Dr. Mounir al-Boursh, director general of Gaza's Ministry of Health, approximately 350 bodies have been admitted to hospitals since the offensive began on October 6.

He told the AP that more than half of the dead were women and children and that many bodies remain in the streets and under the rubble, with rescue teams unable to reach them because of Israeli attacks. “Entire families have disappeared,” he said.

More than 42,000 people were killed in the Israeli offensive, according to the Ministry of Health, which did not say how many were combatants but said more than half were women and children. The offensive has left large areas in ruins and displaced about 90% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million, forcing hundreds of thousands to live in crowded tent camps or schools converted into shelters.

— Chehayeb reported from Beirut and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press reporter Ahmad Mantash in Sidon, Lebanon contributed.

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