Israel pounds Lebanon as death toll reaches 2,986

Lebanon said Sunday an air strike killed three people near Sidon in the south as more bombs hit the east and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited his country's northern border.

The latest attacks on eastern Lebanon came after Israel warned it would again hit Hezbollah targets there.

Israel's military said more than 100 projectiles were fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory on Sunday. Several were intercepted, and some fell in unpopulated areas.

The death toll from Israeli attacks on Lebanon has now climbed to 2,986 and the number of injured to 13,402 since October 2023, including 18 dead and 83 injured in the past 24 hours, the Lebanese health ministry said on Sunday.

At least 772 of those killed were women and children, the ministry added in a statement.

"The Israeli enemy's raid on Haret Saida resulted in an initial death toll of three people killed and nine others injured," Lebanon's health ministry said, referring to a densely populated area near Sidon.

Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) reported another Israeli strike south of Sidon, on the town of Ghaziyeh.

That strike hit a residential building, according to an AFP correspondent, who said a child was rescued from the rubble.

NNA said other Israeli strikes hit near a hospital in Tebnine, a town in the south Lebanon district of Bint Jbeil. Tebnine's major told AFP the hospital was significantly damaged.

Neither the Haret Saida strike nor those in Lebanon's south were preceded by an Israeli evacuation warning.

Israel's military did issue a warning for Lebanon's Baalbek area, which includes east Lebanon's main city and UNESCO-designated Roman ruins, saying it would be targeting Hezbollah-linked facilities.

An AFP correspondent later reported at least three strikes in the Baalbek area, where Hezbollah holds sway and which has seen heavy air raids in the past few days.
Also on Sunday, Lebanese state media reported the recovery of five bodies from the flashpoint southern town of Khiam.

They were among 21 bodies that have been trapped under rubble in Khiam for around one week, according to the NNA.

Israel's military says 38 soldiers have been killed in the Lebanon campaign since it began ground operations.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had on Saturday warned Israel and the United States they "will definitely receive a tooth-breaking response".

Israel has warned Iran against responding to its October 26 attack.

On Sunday demonstrators burned Israeli and US flags outside the former American embassy in Tehran to mark the anniversary of the 1979 hostage crisis that has shaped relations between Washington and Tehran ever since.

American B-52 bombers have arrived in the Middle East, the US military said on Saturday, as part of reinforcements being deployed in a warning to Iran.