Israeli Strikes on Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley Kill More than 60

Rescuers work at a site damaged by Israeli strikes in Yohmor, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, October 29, 2024. (Reuters)
Rescuers work at a site damaged by Israeli strikes in Yohmor, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, October 29, 2024. (Reuters)
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Israeli Strikes on Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley Kill More than 60

Rescuers work at a site damaged by Israeli strikes in Yohmor, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, October 29, 2024. (Reuters)
Rescuers work at a site damaged by Israeli strikes in Yohmor, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, October 29, 2024. (Reuters)

Israeli strikes on Lebanon's Bekaa Valley overnight killed more than 60 people across a dozen towns, the district governor said on Tuesday, the deadliest day yet in the area in more than a year of hostilities.

Rescue workers were still pulling bodies out of the rubble on Tuesday morning.

Israel has ramped up its air strikes across Lebanon over the last month, saying it is targeting Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. Lebanese officials, rights groups and residents of affected towns say the strikes are indiscriminate.

No evacuation orders were given for any of the towns struck overnight. District governor Bachir Khodor said 67 people had been killed and more than 120 wounded and the death toll was expected to rise.

"That's only the people who've been removed from under the rubble and we still don't have the final toll. This is the most violent day for Baalbek in the last year," Khodor told Reuters.

The toll included nine people killed in Ram, its mayor Nazih Noun said, including a woman and her four children.

"It's quiet now, but we don't know how we can carry on with the funerals given the security situation," Noun told Reuters.

Large swathes of the Bekaa Valley are Hezbollah strongholds.

There was no immediate comment from Israel on the attacks.

More than 2,700 people have been killed by Israeli bombardments of Lebanon since Israel's military and Hezbollah began exchanging fire more than a year ago in parallel to the war in Gaza. At least two-thirds were killed in the last five weeks alone, when Israel stepped up its bombing campaign.

The expanded strikes have targeted the port city of Tyre. On Monday, Israel issued a new evacuation order for swathes of the city and carried out strikes that damaged the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, which sit within the evacuation zone.

The strikes and detonation of homes have left towns along Lebanon's border with Israel in ruins, according to satellite imagery.



Israeli Cabinet Approves Gaza Ceasefire Accord, Due to Take Effect Sunday

A woman speaks on a phone outside a tent pitched by the rubble of a destroyed building at a camp for people displaced by conflict in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip on January 17, 2025 following the announcement of a truce amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
A woman speaks on a phone outside a tent pitched by the rubble of a destroyed building at a camp for people displaced by conflict in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip on January 17, 2025 following the announcement of a truce amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
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Israeli Cabinet Approves Gaza Ceasefire Accord, Due to Take Effect Sunday

A woman speaks on a phone outside a tent pitched by the rubble of a destroyed building at a camp for people displaced by conflict in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip on January 17, 2025 following the announcement of a truce amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
A woman speaks on a phone outside a tent pitched by the rubble of a destroyed building at a camp for people displaced by conflict in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip on January 17, 2025 following the announcement of a truce amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

Israel's cabinet approved a deal with Palestinian militant group Hamas for a ceasefire and release of hostages in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Saturday, a day ahead of the agreement's scheduled start.

In the early hours of Saturday after meeting for more than six hours, the government ratified the agreement that would halt fighting and bombardment in Gaza's deadliest-ever war.

It would also enable the release of hostages held in the territory since Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on Israel in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
"The Government has approved the framework for the return of the hostages. The framework for the hostages' release will come into effect on Sunday," Netanyahu's office said in a brief statement.

The ceasefire will come into effect at 0630 GMT on Sunday, the Qatari foreign ministry spokesman posted on X.

Under the deal, the three-stage ceasefire starts with an initial six-week phase when hostages held by Hamas will be exchanged for prisoners and detainees jailed in Israel.

Thirty-three of the 98 remaining Israeli hostages, including women, children, men over 50 and ill and wounded captives, are to be freed in this phase. In return, Israel will release almost 2,000 Palestinians from its jails.

They include 737 male, female and teen-aged prisoners, some of whom are members of Palestinian militant groups convicted of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza in detention since the start of the war.

The Israeli Justice Ministry published their details early on Saturday, along with the ceasefire agreement, which said that 30 Palestinian prisoners would be released for each female hostage on Sunday.

With the accord bitterly opposed by some Israeli cabinet hard-liners, media reports said 24 ministers in Netanyahu's coalition government voted in favor of the deal while eight opposed it.
The opponents said the ceasefire agreement represented a capitulation to Hamas. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened to resign if it was approved and urged other ministers to vote against it. However, he said he would not bring down the government.

His fellow hard-liner, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, also threatened to quit the government if it does not go back to war to defeat Hamas after the first six-week phase of the ceasefire.

After a last-minute delay on Thursday that Israel blamed on Hamas, the Israeli security cabinet voted on Friday in favor of the ceasefire accord, a requirement before the full cabinet vote.

The truce is to take effect on the eve of the inauguration of Donald Trump, who claimed credit for working with outgoing US President Joe Biden's team to seal the deal.