BEIRUT
\nIsraeli strikes on Lebanon killed at least 38 people around the eastern city of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley on Wednesday, according to the regional governor, and at dusk more strikes hit Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs. Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire for over a year in parallel with the Gaza war but fighting has escalated since late September, with Israeli troops intensifying bombing on swathes of Lebanon\u2019s south and east and making ground incursions into border villages.
\nAround 40 Israeli strikes on the Baalbek-Hermel governorate killed 38 people and wounded 54, governor Bachir Khodr said on X. The Israeli military did not comment.
\nIsraeli strikes have also battered Hezbollah strongholds in the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut. At least four strikes targeted the area on Wednesday after the Israeli military ordered residents to evacuate from several locations.
\nThere was no immediate report on casualties or details on what was hit. The attack happened shortly after Hezbollah secretary general Naim Qassem said he did not believe that \u201cpolitical action\u201d would bring about an end to hostilities. He said there could be a road to indirect negotiations if Israel stopped its attacks.
\n\u201cWhen the enemy decides to stop the aggression, there is a path for negotiations that we have clearly defined \u2014 indirect negotiations through the Lebanese state and Speaker (of parliament Nabih) Berri,\u201d Qassem said.
\nRescuers dig for survivors
\nMore than 3,000 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon over the last year, the vast majority in the past six weeks.
\nLebanese rescuers scoured a destroyed apartment building in the town of Barja south of Beirut for bodies or any survivors after an Israeli strike on Tuesday evening that killed 20 people there, Lebanon\u2019s health ministry said.
\nMoussa Zahran, who lived on one of the upper floors of the building, returned to sift through the ruins of his home. His burned feet were wrapped in gauze and his son and wife were in hospital after being wounded in the strike.
\n\u201cThese rocks that you see here weigh 100 kilos, they fell on a 13 kilo kid,\u201d he said, referring to his son and the apartment wall that had collapsed onto him during the strike. It was not clear if the strike targeted a member of Hezbollah. There was no evacuation warning ahead of the air raid.
\nHezbollah claimed a slew of attacks on Wednesday, including two that targeted naval bases near the Israeli city of Haifa and two near Tel Aviv.
\nHezbollah fighters \u201ctargeted the Stella Maris naval base northwest of Haifa with a salvo of high-quality missiles and a squadron of attack drones,\u201d the group said in a statement.
\nIt was the fourth attack on the base in as many weeks.
\nLater on Wednesday, Hezbollah said it launched \u201cattack drones on the Haifa naval base in Haifa Bay, for the first time\u201d. In the evening, it said it targeted a base south of Tel Aviv, also for the first time.
\nCombatants ready to fight
\nHezbollah\u2019s chief said Wednesday his group had tens of thousands of combatants ready to fight, adding that nowhere in Israel was off-limits to attacks.
\n\u201cWe have tens of thousands of trained resistance combatants\u201d ready to fight, Naim Qassem said in a speech marking 40 days since his predecessor was killed. He also said nowhere in Israel would be \u201coff-limits\u201d to the group\u2019s attacks. He said the results of the US presidential election will have no impact on any possible ceasefire deal.
\n\u201cWe don\u2019t base our expectations for a halt of the aggression on political developments\u2026 Whether (Kamala) Harris wins or (Donald) Trump wins, it means nothing to us,\u201d he said in a pre-recorded speech before Trump\u2019s win was announced.
\n\u201cWhat will stop this\u2026 war is the battlefield\u201d he said, citing fighting in south Lebanon and Hezbollah attacks on Israel. The speech was Qassem\u2019s second since he was named Hezbollah secretary-general last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEIRUT Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed at least 38 people around the eastern city of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley on Wednesday, according to the regional governor, and at dusk more strikes hit Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs. Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire for over a year in parallel with the Gaza war but fighting has …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":72693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72727,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72715\/revisions\/72727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}