Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following an Israeli attack<\/p>\n
The Israeli regime\u2019s warplanes have conducted extensive airstrikes against towns and villages across Lebanon, killing at least 492\u00a0people.<\/strong><\/p>\n Lebanon\u2019s health ministry announced the death toll on Monday, saying the victims\u00a0included\u00a035 children and 58 women.<\/p>\n The ministry said at least 1,645\u00a0others had also been wounded in the attacks that targeted the areas earlier in the day.<\/p>\n Lebanon\u2019s health minister Firass Abiad\u00a0said that the health ministry is working to ensure those injured in Israeli strikes are getting the health care they need.<\/p>\n The health minister said he had asked hospitals to stop taking regular, light cases to make space for the wounded from the south.<\/p>\n \u201cWe working on directives for the first-aid centres to be turned into places that can receive the wounded. The displaced people who have cancer, kidney failure and other chronic diseases, we have the plan to continue their treatment in different medical centers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The country\u2019s media outlets said the aircraft had bombed all the towns and villages lying on the southern border as well as their surroundings.<\/p>\n Israeli warplanes also reportedly targeted eastern Lebanese areas, including the Bekaa Valley and\u00a0Baalbek.<\/p>\n Lebanese sources said the airstrikes had targeted a total of more than 40 areas in Lebanon during the attacks.<\/p>\n The Sheikh of the Druze community reached out to the Deputy Head of the Supreme Islamic Shia Council and expressed solidarity and reaffirmed support for the people of southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs, and the Bekaa during this critical period for the country.<\/p>\n The Commissioner of Marjayoun-Hassbaya in the Muslim Scouts, Sheikh Hussein Al-Nader, was killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted his home in the town of Dibbine, Marjayoun district, South Lebanon.<\/p>\n Three people were injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting the Deir El-Zahrani highway, in South Lebanon.<\/p>\n A family of four was killed in Hermel, Bekaa, due to the recent Israeli airstrikes.<\/p>\n Israeli media outlets, meanwhile, alleged that the attacks had hit locations lying as far as 125 kilometers (77 miles) inside the Lebanese territory.<\/p>\n Israeli military spokesman Danieh Hagari said the regime “will engage in [more] extensive and precise strikes\u201d against Lebanon, adding that the attacks would “go on for the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n The regime has markedly intensified its attacks against the country since October 7, when it launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n Lebanon\u2019s Hezbollah resistance movement has responded with numerous strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories as a means of both retaliating against the regime and displaying support for the war-hit Gazans.<\/p>\n On Sunday, the group staged its farthest-reaching strikes against the territories since October, firing scores of rockets against the Ramat David Airbase, 20 kilometers (12 miles) southeast of the city of Haifa, and the Rafael weapons manufacturing facility in the Zevulun area north of the city.<\/p>\n It described the strike against the facility as its \u201cinitial response\u201d to the regime\u2019s detonation of thousands of booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkie radios that killed at least 39 people and wounded 3,000 others across Lebanon over Tuesday and Wednesday.<\/p>\n Also on Sunday, Hezbollah\u2019s Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem said the movement was in a “new phase” in its battle against the regime.<\/p>\n “Threats will not stop us… We are ready to face all military possibilities,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n Qassem made the remarks while attending the funeral of Ibrahim Aqil<\/a>, one of the group\u2019s senior commanders.<\/p>\n Aqil had been martyred alongside 37 others, including three children and seven women, during an Israeli attack on a residential building in a southern suburb of Lebanon\u2019s capital Beirut on Friday.<\/p>\n