Lebanon says 15 dead in Israeli strikes on three villages

Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli strikes on three villages outside traditional Hezbollah strongholds had killed at least 15 people Saturday, as state media reported further strikes elsewhere.

An "Israeli enemy strike on Maaysra", a Shiite Muslim majority village in a mostly Christian mountain area north of Beirut, left "nine dead and 15 wounded", the ministry said in a statement, updating an earlier toll.

An AFP correspondent in Maaysra saw excavators trying to remove chunks of a destroyed building. Emergency workers, one using a manual sledgehammer, tried to break through a huge slab of concrete.

Separately, the ministry said four people had been killed and 18 others wounded in an "Israeli enemy strike" on Barja in the Shouf district south of the capital.

And the ministry reported two dead, four wounded and "body parts" in a Israeli strike on Deir Billa, some 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the town of Batroun on Lebanon's north coast.

DNA tests were being carried out to determine the identity of the remains, the statement added.

The official National News Agency (NNA) had said an "Israeli strike" targeted a house in Deir Billa where families from south Lebanon had taken refuge.

Another AFP correspondent in Deir Billa saw a mattress, pillows, bed covers, a washing basket and clothes among the wreckage, as people sifted through the rubble by hand and smoke rose from a smouldering pile.

In east Lebanon, the management of the Tal Chiha hospital said in a statement that the facility had sustained "light material damage" due to "strikes that targeted the vicinity" of the mainly Christian town of Zahle.

No patients or staff had been injured and the hospital was still operating, it added.

Since September 23, Israel has been heavily bombarding south and east Lebanon, as well as Beirut's southern suburbs, saying it is targeting Hezbollah sites.

The mountain area near Maaysra as well as Barja, Deir Billa and Zahle are not areas usually considered Hezbollah strongholds.

- 'Huge damage' -

Later Saturday, the NNA said "Israeli warplanes... carried out a strike that targeted the centre of the marketplace" in Nabatiyeh, a major city in south Lebanon around 12 kilometres from the border with Israel.

The health ministry reported eight wounded in a "provisional toll" for that strike, adding that rescue workers were still removing rubble.

Israel's army last week told residents to evacuate the city, which is home to public institutions, hospitals and a branch of the Lebanese University.

The ministry also said two people had been wounded in an "Israeli enemy strike on the civil defence centre" belonging to the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee in the south Lebanon village of Aiteet.

And in the eastern Bekaa Valley, the NNA also reported that "enemy aircraft carried out a series of strikes".

The health ministry said the Tal Chiha hospital and two others in the Bekaa Valley had sustained "material damage" in the strikes. The NNA reported "huge damage to houses and property and institutions" and to a university in nearby Riyaq.

Almost a year of cross-border exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah escalated into all-out war on September 23.

The health ministry said Saturday that 26 people had been killed the previous day, reporting 2,255 dead in a year of violence.

More than half of those have been since September 23, according to an AFP tally.