AFPAt least ten firefighters were killed in an Israeli airstrike in an area on the southern border of Lebanon, said the Ministry of Health in Lebanon.
The statement said firefighters were “ready to go out and rescue” from the municipal building in Baraachit when it was hit at night.
There was no comment from the Israeli army, but it said that overnight warplanes hit the artillery of the armed group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
On Monday afternoon, the Israeli army said it had attacked 120 locations in southern Lebanon in just one hour, after Lebanese media reported that Israeli bombs had exploded across the region.
The state-run National News Agency said Israeli warplanes hit more than 30 towns and villages around the southern coastal city of Tire alone.
The BBC’s Orla Guerin, from Tyre, said some of the areas hit were in the hills near the Israeli border, but at least one hit a built-up area of the city.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the strikes targeted three areas of Hezbollah’s Southern Front – the elite Radwan Force, the Missiles and Rockets Force, and the Intelligence Directorate.
The IDF also said it carried out a “targeted” strike in an area south of Beirut, where smoke was reported.
Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon also appeared to increase, with the IDF saying a third had joined the operation it began six days ago to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure near the border.
The IDF also ordered the evacuation of 20 other communities in the south, including the coastal city of Naqoura where UN peacekeepers in Lebanon are headquartered.
Three weeks of intense Israeli strikes and other attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 1,400 people, including 22 on Sunday, and displaced another 1.2 million, according to Lebanese authorities.
Hezbollah – the most powerful Shia Islamist political, military and social organization in Lebanon – remains defiant despite suffering a series of tragic events in recent weeks, including the assassination of its leader and most of its top military commanders.
On Monday, the group stressed that it “relies… on our ability to resist Israeli attacks”.
It came hours after Hezbollah rockets attacked the northern Israeli port city of Haifa and the city of Tiberias, causing damage and injuring nine.
Another 135 rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel on Monday, according to the IDF. The police said that the road in the Lower Galilee region between Haifa and Tiberias was damaged.
The Israeli government – which designates Hezbollah as a terrorist organization – has pledged to make it safe for tens of thousands of displaced residents to return to their homes near the Lebanese border after a year of cross-border fighting that erupted in the Gaza war.
Tensions have been high since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of the Palestinians on October 8, 2023, a day after a deadly attack by its ally Hamas in southern Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting on Monday that “attacking our enemies on Iran’s axis of evil is necessary to protect our future and ensure our security”.
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