An Israeli strike hit a residential building in northern Lebanon on Monday, killing at least 21 people, according to the Lebanese Red Cross.
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There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military and it was not clear what the target was. The strike hit a small block of flats in the village of Aito, which is part of the country’s Christian heartland in the north and far from the Hezbollah militant group’s main areas of influence in the south and east.
Rescuers in Aito searched through the rubble of the building as ambulances stood by to receive the bodies of victims. A number of nearby buildings and cars were also damaged in the strike.
The strike came a day after a Hezbollah drone attack on an army base in northern Israel killed four soldiers – all of them 19 years old – and severely wounded seven others in the deadliest strike by the militant group since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon nearly two weeks ago.
On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the army base and soldiers injured in the attack, vowing that “we will continue to mercilessly strike Hezbollah in all parts of Lebanon – including Beirut”.
Sixty-one people were wounded in Sunday’s attack. Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets, missiles and drones into Israel over the past year, killing more than 60 people, although Israel says most have been intercepted by its air defence systems or hit open areas.
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In Lebanon, some 2,300 people have been killed by Israeli strikes since last October, according to the country’s Health Ministry. More than three-quarters of the deaths occurred in the past month.