BEIRUT/TEL AVIV, April 8 (Reuters) – Israel carried out its heaviest strikes on Lebanon since the conflict with Hezbollah broke out last month, killing more than 250 people on Wednesday even as the Iran-aligned group paused its attacks under a two-week U.S.-Iran ceasefire.
The strikes raised questions about regional truce efforts, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian saying a ceasefire in Lebanon was an essential condition of his country’s agreement with the United States.
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On Wednesday afternoon, at least five consecutive strikes rocked the capital Beirut, sending columns of smoke into the sky as Israel’s military said it had launched the largest coordinated strike of the war. More than 100 Hezbollah command centres and military sites were targeted in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon within ten minutes, it said.
A total of 254 people were killed and over 1,100 wounded across Lebanon, the country’s civil defense service said. The highest toll was in Beirut, where 91 people were killed. The health ministry gave a toll of 182 dead across the country and said it was not a final figure.
It was the deadliest day of the war that erupted on March 2, when Hezbollah fired into Israel in support of Tehran after the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran two days earlier. Israel launched a fully fledged air and ground campaign in response.
Reuters reporters saw civil defense workers guiding an older woman onto a crane to evacuate her from a building in a western part of Beirut. Half of the building had been sheared off in an Israeli strike, leaving residents on the upper floors trapped.
Earlier, Reuters reporters saw people on motorcycles picking up the wounded and transporting them to hospitals because there were not enough ambulances to get to them in time. One of Beirut’s biggest medical facilities said it needed donations of all blood types.
“The scale of the killing and destruction in Lebanon today is nothing short of horrific,” said UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk. “Such carnage, within hours of agreeing to a ceasefire with Iran, defies belief.”
Late on Wednesday evening, a strike hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, according to a Reuters live broadcast.
ISRAEL, US SAY LEBANON NOT INCLUDED IN TRUCE
In a televised address on Wednesday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Lebanon was not part of the ceasefire with Iran and the Israeli military was continuing to strike Hezbollah with force.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Vice President JD Vance also said on Wednesday that Lebanon was not included in the truce.
“I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t,” Vance told reporters in Budapest.
Earlier, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a key intermediary in the U.S.-Iran ceasefire talks, had said the truce would include Lebanon.
In a statement, Hezbollah condemned what it called Israel’s “barbaric aggression” and said the attacks underscored its right to respond.
Hezbollah had stopped attacking Israeli targets early on Wednesday, three Lebanese sources close to the group told Reuters. The group’s last public statement on its military activity was posted at 1 a.m. (2200 GMT Tuesday), saying it had targeted Israeli troops inside Lebanon on Tuesday evening.
“Hezbollah was informed that it is part of the ceasefire – so we abided by it, but Israel as usual has violated it and committed massacres all across Lebanon,” senior Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim al-Moussawi told Reuters.
Another Hezbollah lawmaker, Hassan Fadlallah, told Reuters there would be “repercussions for the entire agreement” if Israel’s attacks continued.
