Cairo [Egypt] / Beirut [Lebanon], November 11: A total of 30 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes in different areas of Lebanon, the Lebanese Ministry of Health reported on Sunday.
The highest toll happened in the town of the Aalamat in Jbeil, north of Beirut, where the ministry said at least 23 people, including seven children, were killed after an Israeli strike on Sunday hit a house there.
The ministry said the toll was likely to rise as body parts of other people have been recovered from the site for identification.
The Shia Muslim majority village of Almat in the Jbeil district is about 30km (19 miles) north of the capital Beirut and is located in a mostly Christian area.
The struck house sheltered 35 displaced people who days earlier had fled Baalbek in eastern Lebanon from the ongoing war, according to Lebanese TV station al-Jadeed. The village 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 group.
"The Israeli enemy strike on Almat in the Jbeil district killed 23 people, including seven children, in an updated but not final toll," the health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Reporting from Beirut, Al Jazeera's Imran Khan noted that this is only the second time that the area has been attacked since Israel's fighting with Hezbollah intensified.
Elsewhere in Lebanon, an Israeli air attack targeted a health centre in the town of Adloun in Sidon in southern Lebanon, leaving three paramedics dead, the Ministry of Health said.
The ministry added that four others were killed in Israeli airstrikes unleashed on Saturday in the Western Beqaa area in eastern Lebanon.
The health ministry also said that three people were killed and two others wounded in an Israeli attack late on Saturday night on Mashghara, in the western part of Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, Meanwhile, one person was killed and four others injured in an attack on Sahmar, also in western Bekaa, that occurred the same night.
Lebanese official media also reported that an Israeli attack hit a house in the eastern city of Baalbek, which was not preceded by a forced displacement order from Israeli forces.
Since September 27, the Israeli military has issued several evacuation warnings, ordering residents to flee their homes. While Israel's military claims evacuation orders are aimed at protecting Lebanon's civilian population, in reality, evacuation orders are not always made. The Israeli military said that in its latest attacks, it had struck Hezbollah infrastructure in the areas of Tyre and Baalbek, including fighters, "operational apartments," and weapons stores.
In retaliation, Hezbollah said it launched rocket attacks on Israeli forces in the town of Shebaa in southern Lebanon and the settlement of HaGoshrim in northern Israel. The attacks took place in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Source: Qatar Tribune