Israeli strikes on Lebanon s Bekaa Valley kill more than 60, authorities say


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Israeli strikes on Lebanon's Bekaa Valley overnight killed more than 60 people across a dozen towns, the district governor said on Tuesday, the deadliest day yet in the area in more than a year of hostilities.

Rescue workers were still pulling bodies out of the rubble on Tuesday morning.

Israel has ramped up its air strikes across Lebanon over the last month, saying it is targeting Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. Lebanese officials, rights groups and residents of affected towns say the strikes are indiscriminate.

No evacuation orders were given for any of the towns struck overnight. District governor Bachir Khodor said 67 people had been killed and more than 120 wounded and the death toll was expected to rise.

"That's only the people who've been removed from under the rubble and we still don't have the final toll. This is the most violent day for Baalbek in the last year," Khodor told Reuters.

The toll included nine people killed in Ram, its mayor Nazih Noun said, including a woman and her four children.

"It's quiet now, but we don't know how we can carry on with the funerals given the security situation," Noun told Reuters.

Large swathes of the Bekaa Valley are Hezbollah strongholds.

There was no immediate comment from Israel on the attacks.

More than 2,700 people have been killed by Israeli bombardments of Lebanon since Israel's military and Hezbollah began exchanging fire more than a year ago in parallel to the war in Gaza. At least two-thirds were killed in the last five weeks alone, when Israel stepped up its bombing campaign.

The expanded strikes have targeted the port city of Tyre. On Monday, Israel issued a new evacuation order for swathes of the city and carried out strikes that damaged the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, which sit within the evacuation zone.

The strikes and detonation of homes have left towns along Lebanon's border with Israel in ruins, according to satellite imagery.



(Reporting by Maya Gebeily and Laila Bassam; Editing by Angus MacSwan)