Dozens of people have been killed in an intense wave of Israeli attacks in southern and eastern Lebanon, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to intensify military actions against Hezbollah, writes the BBC.
Lebanon's Health Ministry said at least 31 people were killed in the latest wave of attacks, including several children.
Israel's military said it hit more than 100 infrastructure sites in one of the heaviest nights of shelling since a US-brokered truce began in mid-April.
The attacks came after Netanyahu said on Monday that he had given instructions to “press the gas pedal even harder” on attacking Hezbollah.
Speaking at a security cabinet meeting on Tuesday, he said Israel was “deepening its operation in Lebanon”.
The airstrikes targeted the village of Mashghara in the Bekaa Valley and Burj al-Shamali in southern Lebanon, local media said.
Some of the attacks took place near Beaufort Castle, according to state media, a nearly 900-year-old fortress recognized by UNESCO, the UN heritage body, as “one of the best-preserved examples of medieval castles” in the region.
In Monday's video statement, Netanyahu said Israel would increase the number and intensity of its strikes against Hezbollah in response to attacks by the Iran-backed Shiite Muslim group, including those involving fiber-optic drones that can evade Israeli defenses.
“We will give them a crushing blow,” he promised.
The announcement caused scenes of panic in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of Hezbollah, where residents were seen fleeing the area following the remarks. Thousands of cars filled the streets with families trying to escape for shelter.
Although the overnight attacks spared the capital, Israeli warplanes carried out wave after wave of attacks in Lebanon throughout the evening and into the early hours of the morning. The BBC counted dozens of attacks in nearly 50 locations.
A man and his wife were killed in an attack on their home in the southern city of Arab Salim on Monday evening, and two other people were killed in the village of Kauthariyet El Rez, according to NNA.
Overnight, several houses in Mashghara were destroyed in Israeli attacks.
Lebanon's Health Ministry said the bodies of 11 people, including a woman and two children, had been pulled from the rubble. Another 15 people were injured, he added.
Among them was a little boy, Mohammed. Videos show rescue teams in the middle of the night frantically digging through the rubble as two small arms emerge through a hole they made. Covered in dirt and dust, they eventually managed to get the seven-year-old to safety.
“When I woke up, I felt like I couldn't move and there was only darkness around me,” Mohammad tells the BBC as he lies in a hospital bed surrounded by family.
“I heard the sound of the boys rescuing me. It took them a long time to get me out.”
His head is wrapped in bandages and his legs and arms are also covered in cuts and scrapes.
Mohammad was sleeping in his bed when the rocket hit his house, killing his father and two sisters.
Mașgara seems like a ghost town. A few cars pass ours on the road to check who we are, but life is dead.
A member of the municipality, Ahmad, takes us to where there are some overnight strikes. It's an apocalyptic experience, with destroyed houses and shops.
“I am not a Hezbollah member, but everyone in the village is with the resistance, and the enemy [Israel] he doesn't spare anyone,” says Ahmad.
Then Ahmad is interrupted by the sound of planes. There is a loud bang and we have to go.
Videos on social media later show a loud explosion on a road not far from where the BBC was filming.
The Israeli military has released aerial images from Mashghara, which it says show several attacks on “Hezbollah infrastructure sites where terrorist activity has been identified”. “During the attack, the terrorists were eliminated,” he added.
The army also said it attacked more than 90 weapons depots, command centers, observation posts and other infrastructure sites used by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon overnight.
On Tuesday morning, the army issued new evacuation orders in Lebanon, accusing Hezbollah of violating the terms of the cease-fire agreement between the Israeli and Lebanese governments that took effect on April 17.
The army's Arabic-language spokesman, Colonel Avichay Adraee, said Hezbollah's repeated violations had left Israeli forces with no choice but to act.
Hezbollah said it targeted three barracks and a military post in northern Israel “in response to Israel's violation of the ceasefire.”
Netanyahu's order to step up Israeli attacks came after the military said on Sunday that a soldier had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon, bringing to 23 total Israeli military casualties from Hezbollah attacks since the start of the conflict on March 2, along with a civilian contractor.
Lebanon's Health Ministry says Israeli attacks during the same period killed at least 3,185 people.
