Israeli strikes in east Lebanon kill 21 - health ministry

Lebanon's health ministry has said Israeli air strikes killed 21 people in east Lebanon, which has been hit by a wave of attacks for nearly a week.

"The Israeli enemy raids on Baalbek-Hemel have killed 21 people and wounded 47," the ministry said, giving a provisional toll, as an AFP journalist reported heavy raids in the Baalbek area.

Israel has struck more targets in Lebanon, pressing Hezbollah with new attacks after killing the Iran-backed group's leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and a string of its other top commanders in an escalating military campaign.

The attacks have dealt a stunning succession of blows to Hezbollah after almost a year of cross-border fire, killing much of its leadership and revealing security holes.

Israel's defence minister is now discussing widening the offensive.

Following the death of Nasrallah, killed in an airstrike in Beirut on Friday, Hezbollah launched new fusillades of rockets into Israel, while Iran said his death would be avenged.

Israel's intensifying bombardment has increased fears the conflict could spin out of control, potentially drawing in Iran as well as the United States, Israel's closest ally.

Nasrallah had not only made Hezbollah into a powerful domestic force in Lebanon during his 32 years as leader, but helped turn it into the linchpin of Iran's network of allied groups in the Arab world.

Nasrallah's body was recovered intact from the site of Friday's strike, a medical source and a security source told Reuters.

Hezbollah has not yet said when his funeral will be held.

Supporters of the group and other Lebanese who hailed its role fighting Israel, which occupied south Lebanon for years, are mourning him.

"We lost the leader who gave us all the strength and faith that we, this small country that we love, could turn it into a paradise," said Lebanese Christian woman Sophia Blanche Rouillard, carrying a black flag to work in Beirut.

The fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, their latest round of warfare in four decades of on-off conflict, has been waged in parallel with Israel's war in Gaza against Hamas since the Iran-backed Palestinian group's attack on Israel last 7 October.

Israel's stated goal is to make its northern areas safe from Hezbollah rocket fire and allow thousands of displaced residents to return, but its strikes have also had a devastating impact on civilians in Lebanon.

Lebanon's health ministry said more than 1,000 Lebanese were killed and 6,000 wounded in the past two weeks, without saying how many were civilians.

The government said a million people, a fifth of the population, had fled their homes.

In Beirut, some displaced families spent the night on the benches at Zaitunay Bay, a string of restaurants and cafes on Beirut's waterfront.

"You won't be able to destroy us, whatever you do, however much you bomb, however much you displace people - we will stay here. We won't leave. This is our country and we're staying," said Francoise Azori, a Beirut resident jogging through the area.

The UN World Food Programme said it had launched an emergency operation to provide food for those affected by the conflict.

Military action

Israel's military said the air force had struck dozens of targets this morning, including launchers and weapons stores while its navy said it had intercepted eight projectiles coming from the direction of Lebanon and one from the Red Sea.

Drones could be heard flying over all parts of the Lebanese capital overnight and today.

Nasrallah's death capped a bad fortnight for Hezbollah, starting with the detonation of thousands of pagers used by its members.

At least nine people were killed in the explosions.

Following this incident, 20 people were killed after walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah detonated across the country's south and in the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut.

Israel was widely assumed to have carried out the actions but has not confirmed or denied this.

Israeli airstrikes across Hezbollah strongholds in south Lebanon, the Bekaa valley near the Syrian border and in Beirut's southern suburbs, have meanwhile killed a string of the group's other most senior commanders.

Israel said it had also killed Nabil Kaouk, a prominent Hezbollah leader.

Hezbollah confirmed his death.

Escalation risks

Concerns have grown about the prospect of a wider conflict.

Israel has mobilised reserve brigades and said it is ready for all options, including a ground operation.

Hezbollah said it will cease fire only when Israel's offensive in Gaza ends.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Nasrallah's "elimination makes the world a safer place".

But Iran's First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref denounced the "unjust bloodshed" and threatened that Nasrallah's killing will bring about Israel's "destruction".

Hamas condemned Nasrallah's killing as a "cowardly terrorist act".

Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Syria all declared public mourning, while Yemen's Huthi rebels said they fired a missile at Israel's Ben Gurion airport yesterday, hoping to hit it as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned from a trip to New York.

Diplomatic efforts have shown little sign of progress.

Lebanon's Information Minister Ziad Makary said during a cabinet meeting that efforts for a ceasefire were still under way.

US President Joe Biden said that "it's time for a ceasefire" when asked about the possibility of an Israeli ground offensive, but he also praised the killing of Nasrallah as a measure of justice for victims of Hezbollah attacks.

In Iran, which helped create Hezbollah in the early 1980s, senior figures mourned the death of a senior Revolutionary Guards member killed alongside Nasrallah.

Tehran called for a UN Security Council meeting on Israel's actions.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was moved to a secure location in Iran after Nasrallah's killing, sources told Reuters.

Hezbollah's arsenal has long been a point of contention in Lebanon, a country with a history of civil conflict.

Hezbollah's Lebanese critics say the group has unilaterally pulled the country into conflicts and undermined the state.

However, Lebanon's top Christian cleric Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai said Nasrallah's killing had "opened a wound in the heart of the Lebanese".

Mr Rai has previously voiced criticism of the Shi'ite Islamist Hezbollah, accusing it of dragging Lebanon into regional conflicts.

Nasrallah led Hezbollah through decades of conflict with Israel