Israeli strikes kill 63 in Lebanon’s Baalbek-Hermel and Bekaa region

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Israeli air strikes killed at least 63 people and wounded dozens more across the Baalbek-Hermel region in the Bekaa Valley on Monday, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said, in what was described as the “most violent day” for the area since the war began.
The National’s correspondents watched a series of strikes hit the region on Monday afternoon, with smoke plumes rising from villages in the eastern Bekaa Valley along the road from the historic city of Baalbek to Beirut. Witnesses said the strikes intensified shortly after, hitting villages around Baalbek.
Baalbek-Hermel Governor Bachir Khodr said it was “the most violent day” since Israel launched a major air campaign against parts of Lebanon on September 23 and a ground invasion of the south on October 1.
“There are still more than 15 people trapped under the rubble whose fate is unknown, and work is under way to retrieve them,” he wrote on X.
Lebanon’s civil defence also reported several fires caused by shelling.
About 30 strikes were reported across Baalbek-Hermel governorate, according to the state-run National News Agency.
Many of the attacks killed several members of the same family, including a mother and her four children in the town of Al Ram, and two mothers who died with their children in Younine.
Sixteen people from a single family, including several children, were killed in a strike in the town of Al Alaq, NNA reported, the highest single death toll in the area on Monday. Twelve people were killed in a strike on the village of Al Hafir, with another eight dead in strikes on Baalbek.
The strikes on Baalbek city hit the Gorraud barracks, near a Palestinian refugee camp and a historic citadel, state media said.
Attacks were also reported in at least 17 other towns and villages. A child was killed and four others wounded in a strike on the village of Brital.
Rescue teams were working to remove rubble from the sites of attacks, NNA reported on Tuesday. The death toll from Monday’s strikes was expected to rise, with NNA describing the reported number as “incomplete”.
Strikes also continued across southern Lebanon overnight and into Tuesday morning, with multiple attacks reported on the town of Jbaa in Nabatieh governorate.
At least 2,710 people have now been killed across the country in a year of Israeli attacks, which intensified last month. Another 12,592 have been wounded, according to the Health Ministry.