Death Toll From Israeli Strikes on Villages in Northeast Lebanon Climbs to 45

Deir Al-Balah: Lebanese authorities on Friday raised the death toll from Israeli bombardment of the country's northeast to at least 45, with airstrikes pounding rural villages that had previously been spared the worst of Israel's intense air campaign against Hezbollah.

The governor of Baalbek, Bachir Khodr, reported airstrikes on nine villages across the northeast killing 41 people on Friday, 17 more deaths than was previously reported by Lebanon's National News Agency.

The state-run news agency, NNA, separately reported four more people killed in the small farming village of Ollak, also in the Bekaa Valley — a rural area of olive groves and vineyards nestled between Lebanon's two mountain ranges where the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group draws significant support.

The latest violence comes against the backdrop of the Biden administration's renewed diplomatic push, days before the U.S. election, to reach temporary cease-fire deals. Israel has stepped up its offensive against Hamas' remaining fighters in Gaza, pulverizing areas in the north and raising fears of worsening humanitarian conditions civilians still there.

Israel has broadened its strikes in Lebanon to bigger urban hubs, like Baalbek, in recent weeks after initially targeting smaller border villages the south, where Hezbollah draws deep support. Iran-backed Hezbollah doubles as a major political party and provider of social services in Lebanon.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, drones and missiles from Lebanon into Israel in solidarity with Hamas immediately after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza. This yearlong cross-border fighting boiled over on Oct. 1, when Israeli forces launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon for the first time since 2006.

In Lebanon's capital, Israeli planes pounded the southern suburb of Dahiyeh overnight and early Friday for the first time in four days, spreading panic after a rare lull. The Israeli military, which warned residents to evacuate at least nine locations in Dahiyeh, said it hit Hezbollah weapons manufacturing sites and command centers.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from Dahiyeh, where fears of Israeli bombings drive a mass outflow of residents at night.

Bulldozers rumbled through clouds of dust and smoke Friday, clearing rubble from the pulverized roads where Israeli warplanes had reduced dozens of buildings to their skeletal remains. Formerly home to families and businesses, mid-rise apartment blocks were left open to the breeze, walls blown off and furniture buried. Hezbollah supporters in several locations raised the group's bright yellow banner atop the rubble.

Intensified Israeli airstrikes on and around the northeastern city of Baalbek this week have prompted 60,000 people to flee their homes, emptying many small villages in the area, said Hussein Haj Hassan, a Lebanese lawmaker representing the region.

Overall, U.N. agencies estimate that Israel's ground invasion and bombardment of Lebanon has displaced 1.4 million people there. Residents of Israel's northern communities near Lebanon, roughly 60,000 people, have also been displaced for more than a year. 

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