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At least 40 people were killed in Israeli strikes in eastern Lebanon on Wednesday, according to the Lebanese health ministry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An Israeli official said the strikes, in the governorates of Baalbek and Bekaa, targeted operatives of the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lebanon’s culture minister said one of the strikes also seriously damaged an Ottoman-era building in the vicinity of the Roman ruins in the city of Baalbek, which is a Unesco World Heritage site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israeli strikes also hit southern Beirut on Wednesday, after the IDF issued evacuation warnings. The military said it struck Hezbollah command centres, weapons stores and other infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A later IDF warning covered four neighbourhoods in southern Beirut including an area near Lebanon’s international airport, which has continued to operate despite Israel’s air strikes on the capital city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soon after, pictures showed a large fireball and thick black smoke rising into the night sky above Beirut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, a rocket fired by Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon killed an Israeli man near a kibbutz in northern Israel, paramedics said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lebanon’s Civil Defence agency has also said the bodies of 30 people were recovered from a four-storey apartment building hit by an Israeli strike on Tuesday evening that destroyed one side of the building and sparked a fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The building, in Barja, a predominantly Sunni Muslim coastal town south of Beirut, was reportedly housing displaced people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Israeli military said it had struck “terror infrastructure\u201d belonging to Hezbollah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A man who lived on one of the upper floors of the apartment building that was hit said his son and wife were injured by falling masonry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“These rocks that you see here weigh 100kg, they fell on a 13kg kid,” Moussa Zahran told Reuters news agency as he surveyed the damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI removed [the rocks] and… handed my son to the civil defence through the window. I carried my wife and came downstairs and got out behind the building… I thank God, glory be to Him, for this miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n