Lebanon’s Civil Defense service said Wednesday they have pulled 30 bodies and remains out of the rubble of an apartment building in the town of Barja that Israel struck the night before. Search efforts were ongoing.
The airstrike Tuesday hit an area that had not been regularly targeted by Israeli military operations. It came without warning. There was no statement from the Israeli military on the strike, and it was not immediately clear what the intended target was.
Civil defense official Mostafa Danaj said it was unclear how many survivors or bodies were still trapped under the rubble.
“We hope that there isn’t anyone else, but the neighbors have said that there are still people (missing),” he said.
Israeli forces and the Iran-backed Hezbollah armed group have been clashing for more than a year, since Hezbollah started firing rockets across the border on Oct. 8, 2023 — a day after the deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza.
The war on the Lebanese front has substantially escalated since mid-September, with Israel launching a massive aerial bombardment of much of Lebanon and a ground invasion.
More than 3,000 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon, the vast majority of them since Sept. 23. Israel has said it targets Hezbollah fighters and weapons caches, but hundreds of civilians have also been killed.