TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel expanded its bombardment in Lebanon on Saturday, hitting Beirut’s southern suburbs with 12 airstrikes and striking a Palestinian refugee camp deep in northern Lebanon for the first time.
The attack on the Beddawi refugee camp near the northern city of Tripoli killed an official with Hamas’s military wing, along with his wife and two young daughters, the Palestinian militant group said in a statement. Tripoli is much farther north than the majority of Israel’s strikes, which have been concentrated in southern Lebanon and Beirut.
Israel has killed several Hamas officials in Lebanon since the Israel-Hamas war began in October last year, in addition to most of the top leadership of Hezbollah.
At least six people were killed in more than a dozen Israeli airstrikes overnight and into Saturday, according to National News Agency, Lebanon’s official news agency.
The Israeli military said special forces were carrying out targeted ground raids against Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon, destroying missiles, launchpads, watchtowers and weapons storage facilities. The military said troops also dismantled tunnel shafts that Hezbollah used to approach the Israeli border.
Some 1,400 Lebanese, including Hezbollah fighters and civilians, have been killed and some 1.2 million driven from their homes since Israel escalated its strikes in late September aiming to cripple Hezbollah and push it away from the countries’ shared border. On Tuesday, Israel launched what it called a limited ground operation into southern Lebanon. Nine Israeli troops have been killed in close fighting in the area in the past few days, the military said.
Also on Saturday, Palestinian medical officials say Israeli strikes in northern and central Gaza early Saturday have killed at least 9 people, including two children.
One strike hit a group of people in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, killing at least five people, including two children, according to the Health Ministry’s Ambulance and Emergency service.
Another strike hit a house in the northern part of the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least four people, the Awda hospital said. The strike also left a number of people wounded, it said.
The Israeli military did not have any immediate comment on the strikes, but it has long accused Hamas of operating from within civilian areas.
The Israeli military warned Palestinians to evacuate along the strategic Netzarim corridor in central Gaza, which was at the heart of obstacles to a ceasefire deal earlier this summer. The military told people in parts of the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps to evacuate to Muwasi, an area along Gaza's shore the military has designated a humanitarian zone.
It’s unclear how many Palestinians are currently living in the areas ordered evacuated, parts of which were evacuated previously.
Almost 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza during the nearly year-long war, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths.
