Israel’s large-scale attacks on Lebanon on Thursday killed at least 15 people in Beirut and southern areas, with 31 others wounded, according to Lebanese health authorities. The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health reported that a “double-tap” Israeli strike on Beirut’s Ramlet al-Baida seafront area, where displaced families were sheltering from relentless bombing, killed eight individuals. Al Jazeera correspondent Heidi Pett, reporting from Beirut, stated that witnesses were sleeping in tents when the roar of jets woke them, followed by two impacts in quick succession.

Pett noted that the strike appeared to be another Israeli attempted assassination operation, “notably in areas outside those traditionally targeted, and beyond the zones where Israel has issued evacuation orders.” She emphasized that such attacks are often described as “precision strikes,” but this one resulted in significant civilian casualties among displaced populations with nowhere else to go. Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr described the attack as a “marked escalation in this conflict,” highlighting how civilians in Lebanon are caught in the crossfire of a punishing front in a wider regional war.

Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) also reported that Israeli forces killed at least seven more people in attacks on southern Lebanon and other parts of the country. Specifically, an Israeli attack on Aramoun, a town overlooking Beirut, killed three people and injured a child. In the town of Deir Antar in the Bint Jbeil district, two people were killed and six wounded, while another two died in an attack on a four-storey building at the Maarakah-Tyre intersection. Search and rescue operations are ongoing in damaged structures.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah and Iran launched coordinated retaliatory attacks. Al Jazeera correspondent Nida Ibrahim, reporting from Ramallah, said Hezbollah fired a salvo of 100 rockets into northern Israel—the largest such barrage since the conflict began—in an attack coordinated with Iran. The strikes forced hundreds of thousands of Israelis into shelters, an issue the Israeli government is reportedly treating cautiously due to public support for the war. Hezbollah also claimed drone attacks on the northern Ya’ara barracks and missile strikes on the Beit Lid base, the Glilot base near Tel Aviv, and the Atlit base near Haifa.

Lebanese health officials stated that the death toll from Israeli attacks since February 28 has risen to 634, with 780,000 Lebanese registered as displaced due to the war. In contrast, only two Israeli soldiers have been reported killed in Lebanon, with several injuries from Hezbollah rockets inside Israel. These figures underscore the disproportionate suffering in this conflict, which is part of the broader regional war allegedly launched by the U.S. and Israeli regimes against Iran and its allies.

Source: www.aljazeera.com