26 KILLED, 33 INJURED IN ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES ACROSS SOUTHERN AND EASTERN LEBANON

ISTANBUL, March 9 (Bernama-Anadolu) -- At least 26 people were killed and 33 injured in a series of Israeli airstrikes Sunday across southern and eastern Lebanon, according Anadolu Ajansi citing Lebanese authorities.

Lebanon's Emergency Operations Centre at the Health Ministry said in separate statements that 19 people were killed and 16 were injured in three Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon.

One strike targeted the town of Sir al-Gharbiya in Nabatieh District, killing 10 people and injuring six others.

Another strike hit the Al-Athar neighbourhood in the city of Tire, leaving eight people dead, while a third strike targeted the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in the southern city of Sidon, killing one Palestinian and injuring 10 others, including three Lebanese nationals.

Separately, six members of the same family were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house and a car repair shop in the town of Douair, also in Nabatieh District, Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported.

Civil defence teams and ambulance crews from the Islamic Risala Scout Association, the Islamic Health Authority and the Lebanese Red Cross took part in retrieving the bodies and transporting them to hospitals in the region, the agency said.

NNA also reported that an Israeli airstrike targeted around 15 workers, most of them Syrian nationals, unloading a truck carrying poultry at a farm in the town of Yahmar al-Shaqif in southern Lebanon.

Ambulance crews were unable to reach the area due to the dangerous security situation, the agency said, without giving a casualty toll.

In the same district, one person was slightly injured after an airstrike hit a house in the town of Sarba, according to NNA.

In eastern Lebanon, an Israeli airstrike targeted an excavator in the village of Brital in the Baalbek District, killing one person and injuring a Syrian national.

Israel has expanded its military campaign in Lebanon since last Monday, following limited rocket fire by the Hezbollah group amid broader regional tensions linked to the US-Israeli war against Iran.

Regional tensions have escalated since Feb 28, when the US and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran that has killed more than 1,200 people, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran retaliated with drone and missile strikes targeting Israel and Gulf countries that are home to US military assets.

The escalation spilt into Lebanon, with Israel and Hezbollah exchanging cross-border attacks that have killed nearly 400 people, injured more than 1,100 and displaced thousands since Monday, according to Lebanese figures.

-- BERNAMA-ANADOLU