Lebanon says 20 killed in Israeli strike north of Beirut

Lebanon's health ministry said an Israeli strike killed 20 people including three children in the village of Almat, north of the capital Beirut

The Shia Muslim majority village of Almat is located in a mostly Christian region. It is outside Hezbollah's traditional strongholds of south Beirut and south and east Lebanon which Israel has heavily bombed since late September in its war against the Iran-backed movement.

"The Israeli enemy strike on Almat in the Jbeil district killed 20 people including three children and injured six, in an updated toll," the health ministry said in a statement.

The ministry also said Israeli strikes killed three Hezbollah-affiliated rescuers in the south.

Earlier, Lebanese official media reported an Israeli strike on a house in the main eastern city of Baalbek, which was not preceded by an Israeli army evacuation warning.

"Enemy aircraft launched a strike on a house in the Al-Laqees neighbourhood" of the city, the state-run National News Agency said.Overnight and Sunday morning, Israel conducted a series of air strikes on southern and eastern villages and locations, NNA said.

Yesterday, Israeli strikes killed 20 people in eastern Lebanon and 13 in the south, according to health ministry figures.Israel intensified its air campaign mainly targeting Hezbollah bastions in Lebanon on 23 September and a week later sent in ground troops.

The escalation came after nearly a year of low-intensity, cross-border attacks by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas following the Palestinian Islamists' 7 October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

More than 3,130 people have been killed in Lebanon since the cross-border exchanges began, according to Lebanon's health ministry, most of them since 23 September.