Rescuers pull 30 bodies from building in Lebanon hit by Israeli strike

Rescuers pulled 30 bodies out of the rubble after a late-night Israeli strike on an apartment building in the town of Barja, Lebanon’s civil defence service said on Wednesday,  as the Middle East wars press on with no signs of abating.

It remained unclear if there were any survivors or bodies still trapped under the rubble after the Tuesday night airstrike, which came without warning.

There was no statement from the Israeli military and the strike’s intended target also was unknown.

Barja, a town just north of the port city of Sidon, has not been regularly targeted so far in the conflict.

“Something pulled me hard, and then the explosion happened,” said Moussa Zahran, who was at home with his wife and son when the building was hit.

He said he could not see but started digging through the rubble until he found his wife and son, alive but injured, and pulled them out. Both are in hospital, he said.

Another resident, Muhyiddin Al- Qalaaji, said he was at work when the strike happened and heard the news from his wife who called him frantically.

“There are many dead and injured,” he said as he carried out what he could salvage of the family’s belongings on Wednesday.

Civil defence official Mostafa Danaj said some of the neighbours have reported there are still people missing.

Israeli forces and the Hezbollah militant group have been clashing for more than a year, since Hezbollah started firing rockets across the border soon after the deadly Hamas-led attack on southern Israel sparked the ongoing war in Gaza in October last year.

The war on the Lebanese front has substantially escalated since mid-September, with Israel launching a massive aerial bombardment and ground invasion.

On Wednesday, sirens blared across northern and central Israel, including in the populous metropolitan area of Tel Aviv, as Hezbollah launched 10 rockets towards Israel.

Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue services said there were no reports of injuries.

A large portion of a rocket slammed into a parked car in the central Israeli city of Raanana. Rockets also hit an open area near Israel’s main airport, Israeli media reported, though the airport said flights were operating as normally.

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed defence minister Yoav Gallant in a surprise announcement that sparked protests across the country.

His replacement is foreign minister Israel Katz, a long-time Netanyahu loyalist and veteran cabinet minister.

The Israel-Hamas war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 250 others, taking them back to Gaza as hostages.

Israel’s military response in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. They do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children.

Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted in 2023, at least 3,000 people have been killed and some 13,500 have been wounded in Lebanon, about a quarter of them women and children, the health ministry reported.

Hezbollah continues to send dozens of rockets and drones towards Israel. The projectiles have killed 72 people in Israel so far, including 30 soldiers, according to Mr Netanyahu’s office.