Lebanon said an Israeli air strike in the heart of Beirut that brought down a residential building and jolted residents across the city killed at least 11 people on Saturday.
Earlier on Friday Lebanon鈥檚 health ministry said an Israeli air strike on Friday killed the director of Dar al-Amal hospital in the east of the country near Baalbek and six of his colleagues.
A ministry statement announced the 鈥榣oss of Dr Ali Rakan Allam, director of Dar al-Amal university hospital, and six colleagues in a cowardly Israeli attack which targeted his residence near the hospital鈥�. It also denounced 鈥榗ontinual Israeli aggression against medical staff and facilities鈥�.
After the Saturday鈥檚 attack, rescue operations were underway in the area in the morning, with an excavator removing the rubble of the eight-storey building, and a fire truck and civil defence rescuers stationed nearby.
The state-run National News Agency said Israeli jets had launched six missiles at the structure, causing 鈥榳idespread destruction in buildings鈥� nearby.
Lebanon鈥檚 health ministry says at least 3,645 people have been killed since October 2023, when Hezbollah began trading fire with Israel in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas. Most of the deaths have been since September this year.
Gaza鈥檚 civil defence agency said that 19 people, including at least six children, were killed by Israeli air strikes and tank fire on Saturday.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 鈥�19 people were killed and more than 40 others wounded in three massacres caused by Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip between midnight and this morning鈥�, as well as by tank fire in Rafah in the territory鈥檚 south.
One of the strikes hit a house in the Zeitun neighbourhood of Gaza City in the north of the territory, killing seven people, three of them children, and wounding 10.
鈥榃hat did these people do?鈥� said Abdullah Shaldan, a member of the family whose house was destroyed. 鈥楾hey were sleeping in their homes -- they are civilians who have nothing to do with Hamas or the resistance.鈥�
AFPTV footage showed people searching the rubble using torches and mobile phones in the darkness, while a young boy desperately cried 鈥榩apa鈥�.
Another strike in the main southern city of Khan Yunis killed six people, including three children, and wounded 26 displaced people who were living in tents near the house that was struck, said Bassal.
In Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, four people were killed in another strike on a house, and in Rafah, along the territory鈥檚 southern border, two young men were killed by tank fire, Bassal said.
At least 44,056 people have been killed in Gaza during more than 13 months of war.
