The Lebanese Civil Defense announced that 254 people were killed and 1,165 others injured in the April 8 attacks on Beirut and other locations in Lebanon by Israel, reported Al Mayadeen. In Beirut alone, 92 people were killed and 742 wounded, while the Southern Suburb accounted for 61 martyrs and 200 injuries. In the Baalbek and Hermel regions, 18 and 9 people were killed, respectively, with dozens more injured.
The Israeli strikes came hours after the ceasefire with Iran was announced and, by all accounts, Hezbollah had ceased military operations about 1 a.m. local time on April 8. The Pakistani announcement of the ceasefire explicitly said Lebanon was included, but Israel went ahead with its escalation anyway.
Israel continued its bombing campaign overnight, striking Beirut’s southern suburbs just before midnight and at dawn, and hit towns across the south on Thursday morning, April 9, Lebanese state media said, reported Reuters. For its part, Hezbollah, which had initially said it would pause attacks on Israel in line with the ceasefire, said it was resuming them on Thursday morning and had fired once across the border into Israel and twice at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.
Rescuers across Lebanon were working through the night to try to save wounded people trapped under rubble of destroyed buildings after the Israeli attacks, which hit heavily populated areas without customary warnings for civilians to flee.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, has been explicit that the intent is to do to southern Lebanon what the IDF did in Gaza, where they depopulated entire cities. “The village homes adjacent to the border, which serve as Hezbollah outposts for all intents and purposes, will be destroyed according to the Rafah and Khan Younis model in Gaza, to remove the threat from Israeli towns,” he said on March 31.
The Israeli campaign continued throughout the day. Fighting between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters raged round the town of Bint Jbeil, about 5 km from the Israeli border, which the IDF has been trying to enter for weeks. At the same time, the Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of the southern suburbs of Beirut.
