BEIRUT, 12 March. - (ANA) - Israel forces continued to pound southern and eastern Lebanon on Wednesday, killing scores of people, while central Beirut and southern suburbs were also hit.

 

Israeli strikes on southern and eastern Lebanon and the capital, Beirut, killed at least 34 overnight and early Wednesday morning, as the conflict wreaks further misery on the country in parallel with the US-Israeli war on Iran.

 

The Lebanese health ministry said seven members of a Syrian family were killed and 18 wounded in an Israeli massacre in the eastern town of Tamnin al-Tahta in Baalbek on Wednesday.

 

At around 5 am on Wednesday, an Israeli bomb hit an apartment block in central Beirut’s Aisha Bakkar, a majorly Sunni neighbourhood, with images shared by state media showing flames and smoke rising from the devastated building.

 

At least four people were injured as a result of the strike and are currently receiving hospital treatment, state media added.

 

The strike on Aisha Bakkar demonstrated Israel’s escalation in Lebanon beyond areas associated with the Shia movement Hezbollah, which Israel claims to only target in its assault on the country, with Christian and Sunni Muslim neighbourhoods now common targets.

 

As well as central Beirut, Israeli forces struck the Shia-majority southern Beirut suburbs of Dahieh on multiple occasions on Wednesday.

 

It also renewed evacuation orders to residents of the Haret Hreik and Burj al-Barajneh neighbourhoods in Beirut's south, indicating imminent airstrikes.

 

Elsewhere in the country, others were killed in Saf al-Hawa, Bint Jbeil, in the southern Nabatieh district, after a drone strike hit a moving vehicle, with casualties reported in Zlaya, in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

 

The Israeli military targeted numerous other towns of southern Lebanon with overnight strikes, hitting Chehabiye, Hanawiya, and Al-Housh in the Tyre district, and Tibnine in the Bint Jbeil district, killing and wounding several, as well as Kfar Tebnit, Arab Salim, and Zawtar al-Sharqiya in the Nabatieh district, killing and wounding others.

 

At least 570 people have been killed so far in Lebanon over the past 10 days, while approximately 780,000 people have been displaced within the country.

 

Lebanon was dragged into the conflict as part of the US and Israeli aggression on Iran, plunging the Middle East into a renewed crisis.

 

Iran accused Israel of killing four of its diplomats in a luxury hotel in Raouche, Beirut, over the weekend, which they labelled a "terrorist attack".

 

Iran wrote a letter to the UN Security Council saying the attack on the Ramada Hotel resulted in "the assassination and martyrdom" of four diplomats.

 

The Iranian ambassador to the United Nations also accused the Security Council of ignoring what he called a "grave terrorist attack" and a "war crime".

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, France, a close ally of Lebanon, has agreed to deliver 60 tonnes of humanitarian aid to the conflict-stricken country, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot confirmed.

 

"And what we have decided is to triple the volume of aid that will arrive this week. This aid will reach... 60 tonnes of humanitarian aid for the Lebanese, including sanitation kits, hygiene kits, mattresses, lamps, and also a mobile medical post," Barrot said in an interview with French radio TF1 on Wednesday.

 

This comes after Barrot formally requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to address the deteriorating situation there.

 

On Monday, Barrot said France is taking "urgent diplomatic and humanitarian steps to respond to the escalating crisis".

 

Barrot also announced that France has allocated €6 million ($6.9 million) in emergency assistance to humanitarian organisations already operating on the ground in Lebanon. - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/12 March 2026 - - -