Rescue operations were underway after an Israeli airstrike on the village of Almat, Lebanon, north of Beirut, killed at least 23 people and wounded several others, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
CreditCredit...Hassan Ammar/Associated Press

Israeli Strike Kills 23 People North of Beirut, Lebanon Says

The strike in the Jbeil district of Lebanon came amid an apparent diplomatic push for a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah.

by · NY Times

An Israeli strike on a village north of Beirut killed at least 23 people and wounded six others on Sunday, Lebanon’s health ministry said, amid what appeared to be a new diplomatic push for a potential cease-fire there between Israel and Hezbollah.

Ron Dermer, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs and a close confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is expected to visit Washington in the coming days and was in Russia last week for discussions regarding the possibility of a Russian role in enforcing a potential cease-fire in Lebanon, according to an official familiar with the matter.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said significant efforts were underway to reach at least a temporary cease-fire in the coming days or weeks.

Mr. Netanyahu said on Sunday that he had spoken three times in recent days with President-elect Donald J. Trump to tighten the alliance between Israel and the United States.

Many former Israeli officials and analysts have warned that the final weeks of the Biden administration could prove challenging for Israel and its ongoing wars in Gaza and Lebanon against Iranian-backed groups. For example, a U.S. threat that it could cut off military support to Israel if the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza does not dramatically improve could be fueling Israel’s motivation to show good-will and readiness for a truce on the Lebanon front, they say, though there is no guarantee the efforts will succeed.

Hours after the strike in Almat, in the Jbeil district on the Lebanese coast, rescue workers were still searching the rubble, the Lebanese authorities said, adding that three children were among the dead.

Photographs from the scene showed a bulldozer on a steep hillside scooping piles of debris from at least one building that appeared to have been destroyed, while emergency workers also picked through the wreckage. The twisted remains of several vehicles also stood nearby.

There was no immediate comment from Israel’s military about the strike in the Jbeil district, which is around 18 miles northeast of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

The Israeli military has been widening its campaign against Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, across Lebanon in recent weeks. On Sunday, Syria’s state news agency reported explosions near Damascus, which the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said were from an Israeli strike on buildings that housed Hezbollah members. The observatory, a British-based group that monitors violence in Syria, said that three people were killed. Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But even as Israel’s military said it was pounding “dozens” of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Sunday and Hezbollah fired more rockets across the border, Israel’s new defense minister added to the sense that Israel might be signaling readiness to wrap up the fighting when he declared in a speech on Sunday that the military had essentially “defeated Hezbollah.”

The defense minister, Israel Katz, said the military needed “to keep up the pressure” and “realize the fruits of that victory” by ensuring a new security situation in southern Lebanon and preventing the rearmament of Israel’s adversaries.

Mr. Netanyahu said his talks with Mr. Trump were “very good and important.”

“We see eye-to-eye on the Iranian threat in all its aspects, and on the dangers they reflect,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a video statement, adding, “We also see the great opportunities facing Israel, in the area of peace and its expansion, and in other areas.”

Mr. Trump has said that he wants to end wars, not start them.

Israel’s operations against Hezbollah were initially focused on southern Lebanon, with the stated aim of crippling the militant group’s ability to fire rockets across the border into Israel. But they have expanded to include cities and towns across Lebanon, including places far from that border — like the Jbeil district.

A man walks past damaged buildings, in the aftermath of an Israeli strike in Mashghara, in the western part of the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, on Sunday.
Credit...Maher Abou Taleb/Reuters

Another target of the widening campaign has been the Bekaa Valley in northeastern Lebanon, which is home to the historic city of Baalbek. Israeli strikes killed 20 people in Baalbek and the towns around it on Saturday, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

Baalbek has been hit repeatedly in recent weeks. Dozens of people have been killed and most of the city’s population has fled. The Israeli military said it had struck “Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure sites” near Baalbek and the port city of Tyre on Saturday.

Lebanon’s health ministry cited five separate deadly incidents in Baalbek and the surrounding area on Saturday, including one in which 11 people were killed. In a statement on Saturday night, it added that 14 people were wounded. The ministry gave few details of the attacks and did not say whether the casualties were civilians or Hezbollah fighters.

Hezbollah’s cross-border attacks have persisted even as Israel’s campaign has intensified. The group fired 70 projectiles — likely missiles or drones — across the frontier on Saturday and at least 20 on Sunday, according to Israel’s military. Many were intercepted by Israel’s air defenses or fell in open areas, it said.

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