Roundup: Israeli strikes kill over 55 in Lebanon, 19 in Gaza

Israeli air strikes on Saturday killed more than 55 people in Lebanon, many of them in central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said. 

One strike in the heart of Beirut brought down a residential building and jolted residents across the city.

The strike on the working-class Basta neighborhood killed at least 20 people and wounded 66, Lebanon's Health Ministry said in a revised toll.

"We saw two dead people on the ground... The children started crying and their mother cried even more," said Samir, 60, who lives in a building facing the one destroyed.

The attack in the capital was followed by others in the city's southern suburbs after calls by the Israeli military to evacuate. Israel has not commented on the strike in central Beirut but said it had again hit Hezbollah targets in the city's southern suburbs.

A military statement said that over the past week, the air force "struck dozens of Hezbollah command centers, weapons storage facilities, and terrorist infrastructure in the Dahieh area."

A Lebanese security source told AFP that the central Beirut strike had "targeted a leading Hezbollah figure," but a Hezbollah politician, Amin Sherri, denied to Lebanese media that any official was present at the time of the attack.

Similar strikes carried out without warning outside of Hezbollah's traditional bastions – which include southern Beirut but not the center – have tended to target senior figures.

The Health Ministry said Israeli air strikes also hit eastern Lebanon, killing 24 people including 13 in the town of Shmostar overlooking the Bekaa Valley, another Hezbollah stronghold.

In Lebanon's south, at least 14 people were killed, including five in the coastal city of Tyre, the ministry said.

Israeli strikes kill 19 in Gaza

In Gaza, the civil defense agency said that 19 people, including at least six children, were killed by Israeli air strikes and tank fire early on Saturday.

One of the strikes hit a house in the Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza City in the north of the territory, killing seven people, three of them children, and wounding 10.

"What did these people do?" said Abdullah Shaldan, a member of the family whose house was destroyed. "They were sleeping in their homes – they are civilians who have nothing to do with Hamas or the resistance."

TV footage showed people searching the rubble using torches and mobile phones in the darkness, while a young boy desperately cried "papa."

Another strike in the main southern city of Khan Yunis killed six people, including three children, and wounded 26 displaced people who were living in tents near the house that was struck.

In Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, four people were killed in another strike on a house, and in Rafah, along the territory's southern border, two young men were killed by tank fire, Bassal said.

Israeli hostage dies

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced on Saturday that an Israeli hostage was killed in an area of northern Gaza targeted by Israeli bombardment. Israel's military said it could neither "confirm nor refute" the claim.

"After weeks of interrupted communication with members tasked with protecting the occupation's prisoners, it was revealed that one of the female captives was killed in an area under attack in northern Gaza, while the life of another female captive who was with her remains in grave danger," said Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for the Brigades.

Ubaida accused Israel of causing "suffering and death" of the captives, adding that the Israeli government must prepare to deal with the "dilemma" of the captives' bodies going missing amid its attacks.

(With input from AFP and Xinhua)