TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military on Saturday kept up its fierce bombardment of Lebanon, including Beirut’s southern suburbs and the port city of Tyre, with two paramedics among those killed, as attacks continued to rage across much of the devastated Gaza Strip.
The Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah had fired around 65 missiles at Israel by Saturday afternoon, the military said, six weeks after Israeli troops began a ground offensive in southern Lebanon.
As it has for days now, Israeli jets once again pounded Beirut’s southern suburb known as Dahieh. The Israeli military said it hit multiple sites used by Hezbollah, including weapons depots and other infrastructure.
The strikes demolished several buildings in the Haret Hreik area of Dahieh, a Hezbollah stronghold, Lebanon’s state news agency NNA reported.
Clashes persisted in many places in southern Lebanon, too, where Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire were reported. Israel’s military called on the residents of 15 villages to flee.
At least two paramedics were killed in the southern towns of Burj Rahhal and Kafr Tibnit while they were on rescue missions, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.
The ministry condemned what it called “savage” attacks on paramedics doing rescue work.
Since September, Israel’s military has massively expanded its attacks in Lebanon. In recent days the sides have been studying a draft ceasefire proposal submitted by the United States.
Top Israeli officials have repeatedly expressed skepticism of potential truce deals, saying Israel must have the right to continue combating terrorism in Lebanon and disarm Hezbollah. Israel has also demanded that the militants withdraw to the area north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the border with Israel.
Two unmanned aerial vehicles launched by Hezbollah and laden with explosives were shot down over the northern Galilee region about an hour apart, the Israeli military said earlier on Saturday.
Sirens also sounded in the far south near Eilat when a rocket flew towards Israel from the east but failed to reach Israeli airspace, the military said. Pro-Iranian militias in Iraq claimed responsibility.
Israel strikes former school building in Gaza
In the Gaza Strip, a school-turned-shelter in the al-Shati refugee camp in the north was the target of an Israeli attack, which killed 10 people and injured 20 others, the Hamas-controlled civil defense agency said.
Displaced persons were said to have been accommodated in the building and children were among the casualties.
Residents told dpa that Israel’s military had attacked the building with two missiles. Rescue workers were still searching for survivors in the wreckage, reported the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Israel said it was looking into the incident.
Gaza medics reported further deaths in cities in the south of the territory, with at least five people killed in an Israeli attack in Rafah and at least four killed in Khan Younis.
The civil defense also reported five deaths in an Israeli airstrike in the center of the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, Gaza extremists attacked Israel again. According to the Israeli army, two missiles were intercepted that had been fired from the north of the Gaza Strip.
It is often impossible to immediately verify the accounts given by the sides in Gaza, Lebanon and Israel.
Situation in Gaza a ‘horror film’
The situation in the north of the Gaza Strip resembles a “dystopian horror film” and has recently worsened, according to the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
During a recent visit, Jan Egeland drove through “endless areas with completely destroyed houses.” Despite this, people are still holding on there, he told Germany’s Zeit Online news website.
Aid deliveries are often looted, said Egeland, who witnessed this himself at the Kerem Shalom border crossing near the town of Rafah in the south of the coastal zone.
“Maybe 100 men were standing there with sticks, waiting to stop the trucks coming behind us and jump on them,” he said in the interview published on Saturday.