Lebanon says dozens killed in Israeli strikes

BEIRUT — Lebanon said Israeli airstrikes on Saturday killed dozens of people, many of them in central Beirut, as Israel's defense minister vowed action against Hezbollah.

On Israel's second front, the more than 13-month conflict with Hamas militants in Gaza, rescuers said predawn Israeli airstrikes and tank fire killed 19 people and wounded more than 40, Agence France-Presse reported.

After nearly a year of limited cross-border exchanges of fire, in which Lebanon's Hezbollah said it was acting in support of Palestinians, Israel escalated airstrikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Sept 23. A week later, it sent ground troops to southern Lebanon.

One strike on Saturday in the heart of Beirut brought down a residential building and jolted residents across the city.

The strike on the working-class neighborhood killed at least 20 people and wounded 66, Lebanon's health ministry said.

The attack in the capital was followed by others in the city's southern suburbs after calls by the Israeli military to evacuate.

Israel has not commented on the strike in central Beirut but said it had again hit Hezbollah targets in the city's southern suburbs.

A Lebanese security source told AFP the central Beirut strike had "targeted a leading Hezbollah figure", but a Hezbollah lawmaker, Amin Sherri, while speaking to Lebanese media, denied any official was present at the time of the attack.

The health ministry said Israeli airstrikes also hit eastern Lebanon, killing 24 people, including 13 in the town of Shmostar overlooking the Bekaa Valley.

In Lebanon's south, at least 14 were killed, including five in the coastal city of Tyre, the ministry said.

The European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned on Sunday that Lebanon was "on the brink of collapse".

Four people were killed and 40 others injured in Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon on Sunday, according to the Lebanese army and a source in the Lebanese Red Cross.

Air raid sirens were activated in several areas of central and northern Israel on Sunday, the army said, after projectiles were fired from Lebanon.

In a telephone call with Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Saturday, Washington's Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the United States sought a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon and urged Israel to improve the "dire" conditions in Gaza.

A spokesman for Katz said he underscored that Israel would "continue to act decisively in response to Hezbollah's attacks" in Israel.

In the predawn darkness of Gaza on Saturday, one strike killed seven people, including children, at a house in the Zeitun area of Gaza City, civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

Abu Obeida, the spokesman for Hamas' armed wing, said on Saturday a female hostage had been killed in the north Gaza area but gave no further details.

Israel's military said it was examining the information.

Agencies - Xinhua