Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed more than 3,000 people in the 13 months of fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli forces along the border, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health has said.
The ministry said late on Monday that 3,002 people were killed and 13,492 injured since the beginning of Israel’s “aggression” against Lebanon. There were 589 women and at least 185 children among the dead, it added.
While Israel claims that hundreds of Hezbollah fighters have been killed in its attacks, witnesses and independent reports from bombed communities across Lebanon attest to the high number of civilian casualties from widespread and indiscriminate Israeli air strikes and artillery shelling.
The United Nations children’s agency said last week that at least one child per day had been killed in the country over the past month.
“Since October 4 of this year, at least one child has been killed and 10 injured daily,” Catherine Russell, UNICEF executive director, said.
“Thousands more children who have survived the many months of constant bombings physically unscathed are now acutely distressed by the violence and chaos around them,” she added.
The mounting death toll comes as an estimated 1.2 million of Lebanon’s population of 5.8 million have been forcibly displaced from cities, towns and villages as well as neighbourhoods in the capital, Beirut, which Israel has bombed repeatedly and continues to issue forced evacuation orders.
The UN agency for refugees (UNHCR) said an average of 400-600 people from Lebanon have been arriving in Iraq every day over the past week. Most of them are Lebanese, but there has also been an uptick in the arrival of Syrians and Palestinians.
At least 28,350 refugees from Lebanon arrived in the country since the escalation in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in September, the agency said. A majority of them are being hosted in Najaf and Karbala.
Meanwhile, an estimated 472,000 people from Lebanon crossed into Syria in recent weeks, the UNHCR said on Monday.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), emergency medical services in Lebanon have reported 201 attacks over the past year, resulting in 151 deaths.
At least 212 people have been wounded in the violence, which “is hindering the rescue and relief efforts, and ultimately contributing to high death rates”, the WHO said.
In Israel, 72 people have been reported killed in Hezbollah attacks since October last year. The number includes at least 30 Israeli soldiers killed in fighting with the Lebanese armed group. More than 60,000 people have been displaced from their homes in northern Israel.
A cessation in the fighting appears to be a long way off amid the rising number of deaths and destruction of Lebanese infrastructure and civilian property.
On Friday, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati accused Israel of blocking any progress in the negotiations towards a ceasefire with Hezbollah.
“Israeli statements and diplomatic signals received by Lebanon confirm the Israeli stubbornness in rejecting the proposed solutions and insisting on the approach of killing and destruction,” he said.
The AFP news agency verified video footage on Monday showing massive detonations in a southern Lebanese border village, where a local official said hundreds of houses have been wiped out by Israel since last year.
The video, shared widely online, showed more than a dozen simultaneous detonations that ripped through Meiss el-Jabal and razed Lebanese homes to dust.
Similar aerial scenes of home 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 hills are seen crumpling in a cloud of grey dust in the videos circulating widely online.
According to Lebanon’s official 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 a vacated hospital in the village, Mayor Abdul-Monhem Choukair said.
“Seventy percent of Meiss el-Jabal is destroyed,” the mayor said, adding that the “Israeli enemy’s goal is systematic destruction”.
