Death toll from Israeli attacks on Lebanon exceeds 3,000: Ministry of Health | Israel attacks Lebanon News

The ministry says 589 women and at least 185 children have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the past 13 months.

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have now killed more than 3,000 people in the 13 months since fighting broke out between Hezbollah and Israel along the southern border with Lebanon and northern Israel, Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health said.

The ministry said late Monday that 3,002 had been killed and 13,492 wounded since the start of Israel’s “aggression” against Lebanon.

The figures show that among the 3,002 people killed so far were 589 women and at least 185 children, according to the ministry.

While Israel claims that hundreds of Hezbollah fighters have been killed in its attacks, witnesses and independent reports from bombed communities in Lebanon attest to the high number of civilian casualties from widespread and indiscriminate Israeli airstrikes and artillery bombardment.

UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, said last week that at least one child a day had been killed in Lebanon in the past month.

“Since October 4 this year, at least one child has been killed and 10 injured every day,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.

“Thousands of other children who survived many months of constant bombing physically unscathed are now deeply disturbed by the violence and chaos around them,” the agency said.

The rising death toll is estimated as 1.2 million of Lebanon’s population of 5.8 million have been forcibly displaced from towns, cities and villages, as well as neighborhoods in the capital, Beirut, which Israel has repeatedly bombed and continues to issue evacuation orders.

In Israel, 72 people have been killed in Hezbollah attacks since last October, a figure that includes at least 30 Israeli soldiers killed in fighting with the Lebanese armed group. More than 60,000 people were displaced from their homes in northern Israel.

An end to the fighting appears far away amid the mounting death toll and destruction of Lebanese civilian infrastructure and property.

On Friday, Lebanon’s interim prime minister, Najib Mikati, accused Israel of blocking any progress in ceasefire negotiations with Hezbollah.

“Israeli statements and diplomatic signals received by Lebanon confirm Israeli stubbornness in rejecting proposed solutions and insisting on the kill and destroy approach,” he said.

The AFP news agency on Monday verified video footage that showed massive detonations in a border village in southern Lebanon, where a local official said hundreds of homes had been destroyed by Israel since last year.

The video, widely shared online, showed more than a dozen simultaneous detonations that tore through Meiss el-Jabal and pulverized Lebanese homes.

Similar aerial scenes of house demolitions have been captured from several border villages, including Mhaibib and Odaisseh, since Israel sent ground troops into southern Lebanon in late September, AFP reports.

Houses covering lush hillsides are seen crumpling in a cloud of gray dust in videos circulating widely online.

According to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA), Israeli troops blew up buildings in at least seven border villages last month.

Monday’s video from Meiss el-Jabal showed large detonations near an evacuated hospital in the village, Mayor Abdul-Monhem Choukair said.

“Seventy percent of Meiss el-Jabal is destroyed,” the mayor said, adding that “the goal of the Israeli enemy is systematic destruction.”