Israeli airstrikes on Friday killed at least 24 people in northeastern Lebanon, the country’s news agency said, raising the death toll from eight there.
It was the latest deadly toll in the area since the conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah escalated last month.
Israel’s military has said that its operation in Lebanon is targeting Hezbollah’s military infrastructure.
Lebanon’s state National news Agency reported four airstrikes in different villages across country’s northeast, saying rescuers were still searching for survivors in Younine, a town in the Bekaa Valley, from the rubble of a targeted house.
Hussein Haj Hassan, a Lebanese lawmaker representing the region in Baalbek-Hermel region, said that 60,000 people have already fled their homes in the area due to Israeli bombardment.
The death toll from Friday's strikes in the northeast was expected to increase further, reports said.
Earlier, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike on a mountain town overlooking Beirut has killed three people and wounded five.
The ministry gave no further details about the early Friday airstrike on the edge of Qamatiyeh, southeast of Beirut.
An Associated Press journalist who visited the scene said the strike was closer to the nearby village of Ein al-Rummaneh, adding that it caused minor damage to an apartment on the first floor of a building.
On Oct. 6, an Israeli strike in Qamatiyeh killed six people, including three children, the Health Ministry said.
Israeli attacks have killed at least 2,897 people and injured 13,150 in Lebanon, with 30 fatalities reported in the past 24 hours, the ministry said on Friday.
‘New wave of displacement’
Meanwhile, the UN humanitarian aid coordination agency warned of a new “wave of displacement” in Beirut after the Israeli army issued new orders for people to leave.
Spokesman Jens Laerke of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid, citing local officials, said the new displacement orders for the capital’s southern suburbs were followed shortly afterward by heavy airstrikes.
He told reporters in Geneva that other recent displacement orders from the Israeli military spurred an estimated 50,000 people to leave the eastern city of Baalbek and head mostly toward the northern Bekaa Valley.
“We are working to access civilians who remain in hard to reach areas. To date, 15 convoys have successfully been organized to reach areas” in four Lebanese cities, including Baalbek, Laerke said. “But the insecurity has an impact on what we can do.”
