ISRAELI strikes across southern Lebanon and the capital, Beirut, have killed at least 14 people, a day after Israel threatened to hit Lebanon’s main border crossing with Syria, forcing its closure.
Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday killed at least four people while 10 people – including a family of six were killed in Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon.
A further 39 people were wounded in an Israeli strike on Beirut’s Jnah neighbourhood, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health. The strike hit about 100 metres (330ft) from Rafik Hariri University Hospital, the country’s largest public medical facility, a medical source told the AFP news agency.
Israel has launched air strikes across Lebanon since March 2 after the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in response to the United States-Israeli war on Iran. Israeli forces have also launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah on Sunday claimed to have fired a cruise missile at an Israeli warship 126km (78 miles) off the Lebanese coast. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Al Jazeera was not able to verify the claim.
Although most Israeli strikes against Hezbollah have been conducted by jets and drones, some have come by sea.
In a statement, the Israeli military warned it had “begun striking Hezbollah infrastructure sites” in Beirut’s southern suburbs without providing evidence for its claims.
On Saturday, Israel said it would carry out strikes on the Masnaa border crossing between Lebanon and Syria. Masnaa serves as a vital trade route for both countries and a key gateway to the rest of the region for Lebanese people.
The border post was quickly evacuated on the Lebanese side, and the site was virtually deserted early on Sunday with only a few guards still on duty, according to AFP.
In Syria, Mazen Aloush with the General Authority for Borders and Customs insisted that the crossing, known as Jdeidet Yabous on the Syrian side, was “exclusively for civilian use and is not used for any military purposes”.
Aloush said traffic through the crossing would be temporarily suspended due to the Israeli threat.
Israeli attacks on Lebanon since March 2 have killed more than 1,400 people, including 126 children, and displaced over 1.2 million, according to Lebanese authorities.
In the southern Lebanese town of Kfar Hatta, an Israeli strike killed seven people including a four-year-old girl and a Lebanese soldier, the Health Ministry said on Sunday.
The previous evening, the Israeli army issued a forced evacuation order for the town, where many displaced people from other parts of southern Lebanon have fled.
In another air strike on southern Lebanon, at least three people were killed and others injured early on Sunday, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported.
As Israeli troops push deeper across their border into southern Lebanon and destroy villages, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun reiterated his call for talks with Israel, saying he wanted to spare southern Lebanon from destruction on the scale seen in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
“Why don’t we negotiate … until we can at least save the homes that have not yet been destroyed?” he proposed in a televised address on Sunday.