Israeli strike kills at least 8 in north Lebanon

Lebanon said an Israeli strike on the northernmost Akkar region killed at least eight people Monday in one of the farthest attacks from the Israeli border since war erupted in September.

A security official told AFP the target of the strike was a Hezbollah member who was part of a displaced family from south Lebanon that had moved into the building.

"The Israeli enemy strike on Ain Yaacoub in Akkar killed eight people and injured 14 others," the health ministry said in a statement, giving what it said was a preliminary toll.

Earlier, Lebanese state-run media said Israel struck a house in Ain Yaacoub, a village inhabited mostly by Sunni Muslims and Christians that is far from the Iran-backed Hezbollah's traditional bastions.

Since September 23, Israel has intensified its air campaign against Hezbollah, mainly targeting the group's strongholds in Lebanon's east and south and south Beirut, and very rarely in the north.

"An enemy strike targeted a house in the village of Ain Yaacoub," some 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Israel, said Lebanon's official National News Agency.

Local official Rony al-Hage told AFP that "displaced people lived in the two-storey house", and that it was the northernmost Israeli attack since the full-blown war erupted.

After Israel ramped up its campaign of air raids, it also sent ground troops into south Lebanon on September 30.

"Rescue and rubble-removing operations are still ongoing," Hage said.

Residents of a nearby village heard a loud explosion and ambulance sirens.

A local Facebook page broadcast a live video feed it said was from the scene that showed a destroyed house, with people removing rubble with their bare hands and using their phones as flashlights.

The health ministry earlier said an Israeli strike on the southern town of Saksakiyeh killed at least seven people.

On Sunday, the ministry said an Israeli strike killed 23 people, including seven children, in the village of Almat north of the capital.

The Lebanon war erupted after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges of fire, launched by Hezbollah in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. That attack triggered the ongoing Gaza war.

More than 3,240 people have been killed in Lebanon since the cross-border fire began last year, according to the health ministry, with most of the deaths coming since late September.