[Published: Sunday March 15 2026]
 Israel threatens to 'turn Lebanon into Gaza' as 23 killed in new airstrike
BEIRUT, 15 March. - (ANA) - Israeli airstrikes killed at least 23 people in Lebanon since dawn on Saturday as the Israeli military intensifies its attacks and prepares to launch a ground invasion that one Israeli official said would inflict Gaza-like destruction on the country.
An airstrike hit a residential building in northern Beirut on Saturday, the second consecutive day that Israel has bombed previously relatively safe areas of the city as it continues to expand the war.
Twelve medical workers were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a healthcare centre in southern Lebanon overnight. Another attack on the town of Sawaneh killed two paramedics.
Separate strikes were reported in other areas of the south on Saturday morning.
At least 773 people, including more than 100 children, have been killed in Israel's 12-day assault while almost 2,000 others have been injured.
The Israeli military has issued evacuation orders across swathes of the country's south and Beirut's southern suburbs, covering more than an eighth of the country's territory.
More than 820,000 people – around 15 percent of the country's population - have been displaced from their homes.
Israel has expanded its attacks into new areas of Lebanon and has begun targeting civilian infrastructure since a Hezbollah missile attack on Wednesday saw 200 projectiles fired across the border.
"The Lebanese government, which misled and did not fulfil its commitment to disarm Hezbollah, will pay increasing prices through damage to infrastructure and the loss of territory," Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz threatened on Friday.
Ground invasion
The Israeli military has deployed more troops to the border ahead of a ground invasion to seize territory up to the Litani River.
"The goal is to take over territory, push Hezbollah's forces north and away from the border, and dismantle its military positions and weapons depots in the villages," one senior Israeli official told US news outlet Axios.
Another official indicated that Israel plans to embark on a widespread campaign of destruction across the country's south.
"We are going to do what we did in Gaza," the US outlet quoted them as saying. Israel on Friday rejected a Lebanese offer to engage in direct peace talks.
During their two-year genocidal war on Gaza, Israeli forces razed most of the Palestinian enclave's infrastructure to the ground, destroying residential areas, schools, hospitals and cultural sites.
The Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah began firing missiles into Israel in response to the assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on 2 March.
Israel, which had bombed Lebanon hundreds of times following the November 2024 ceasefire, responded by bombarding Shia-majority areas and forcibly displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians.
UN secretary Antonio Guterres on Friday launched a $325 million appeal to ease what has become the country's largest displacement crisis in decades.
Following talks with Lebanese leaders in Beirut, Guterres called on both sides to stop the war and voiced support for the government's efforts to disarm Hezbollah.
On Friday, UN peacekeepers stationed in the country's south came under attack for the second time in a week after Israel shelled a base in the town of Mays al-Jabal. No casualties have been reported in the incident.
Last week, three Ghanaian peacekeepers were wounded in an Israeli attack. - (ANA) -
AB/ANA/15 March 2026 - - -
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