Israeli airstrikes on Monday killed at least 60 people in the Bekaa Valley, in eastern Lebanon, Lebanese officials said, in what appeared to be the deadliest barrage of strikes in the area since the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah escalated last month.
At least 58 others were injured in the attacks according to Lebanon’s health ministry, which reported the death toll. Most of the airstrikes were concentrated in Baalbek district, a patchwork of farmlands and villages in the valley that is home to a city of the same name. Hezbollah holds sway in parts of the district, one of Lebanon’s most underdeveloped regions, which borders Syria.
Israel’s military has said that its operation in Lebanon is targeting Hezbollah’s military infrastructure. On Tuesday, Israel’s military said its forces had engaged in “joint aerial and ground operations” against “terror infrastructure sites” in Lebanon, but it did not mention the Bekaa Valley.
While Israeli airstrikes have rained down across the valley over the past month, residents described the barrage of strikes on Monday night and Tuesday morning as the most intense they had experienced. The strikes also hit within the city of Baalbek — an urban center that has been largely spared in Israel’s recent air campaign — stoking unease that a rare pocket of relative safety in the district was no longer.
“They were the most powerful strikes we’ve had here,” said Ibrahim Bayan, a deputy of the mayor of Baalbek city. “We thought the strikes wouldn’t stop until they had leveled all of Baalbek.”
At around 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Mr. Bayan began to hear the thud, thud, thud of airstrikes raining down on the hills surrounding the city, he said. Then at around 7 p.m., his house shook and some of his windows shattered after strikes hit within the city limits. Mr. Bayan said he had barely slept the rest of the night as the booms of strikes and the roar of ambulance sirens echoed across the city.
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
