BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon reeled Thursday after the deadliest day of the renewed war between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group, with the death toll exceeding 300 people as more remains were pulled out of the rubble and bodies identified at hospitals.
Meanwhile, Israel made the surprise announcement of authorizing direct talks with Lebanon, despite their lack of diplomatic ties. Israeli attacks continued.
The Health Ministry said that 1,150 people were also wounded in the widespread strikes that rocked Lebanon on Wednesday, including in busy parts of Beirut.
There was no immediate response from Lebanon, which had repeatedly proposed talks to end the war, or from Hezbollah. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that talks would focus on disarming Hezbollah and “establishing peaceful relations” between the countries.
Israel’s announcement came hours after it had warned of escalation and said that it had killed an aide and nephew of Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem, Ali Yusuf Harshi.
Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, earlier said that continued Israeli attacks on Lebanon would bring “explicit costs and STRONG responses,” while insisting that a two-week ceasefire in the Iran war extended to Lebanon. Israel has disagreed.
Israeli strikes on Wednesday, without warning, killed at least 203 people and wounded more than 1,000, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said. Israel’s military said that it targeted Hezbollah sites, but several strikes hit densely packed commercial and residential areas during rush hour, leading to widespread civilian casualties. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun called the attacks “barbaric.”
U.S. Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday said that Washington asked Israel to scale back attacks on Lebanon to ensure negotiations with Iran are successful.
‘I thought I was dead’
In Beirut, people waited anxiously on the ragged edges of search and rescue work, shielding their faces from the dust. Exhausted firefighters sat on a charred car amid collapsed buildings.
Lebanese Civil Defense spokesperson Elie Khairallah told The Associated Press that a wounded woman was found alive overnight in the seaside neighborhood of Ain Mreisseh, and a man was found alive in his collapsed apartment building in the southern suburbs.
Mohammad Chehab, a Syrian man from Deir el-Zour, said that six of his 10 family members had been found dead in a destroyed building.
“They’ve been searching all day” for the rest, he said.
At hospitals, survivors and doctors described the carnage, while relatives gathered to identify bodies.
Abdul Rahman Mohammad, a Syrian who lost five relatives in the Hay al-Sellom neighborhood, waited at Rafik Hariri Hospital to retrieve the bodies of his mother, two sisters, brother and brother-in-law.
“They were struck without any warning. This is Israeli brutality,” he said.
Dr. Mohamad El Zaatari, director of the public hospital, said that it had treated 45 wounded people, including 10 cases in intensive care.
