Lebanon’s Civil Defence agency has also said the bodies of 30 people were recovered from a four-storey apartment building hit by an Israeli strike on Tuesday evening that destroyed one side of the building and sparked a fire.
The building, in Barja, a predominantly Sunni Muslim coastal town south of Beirut, was reportedly housing displaced people.
The Israeli military said it had struck “terror infrastructure” belonging to Hezbollah.
A man who lived on one of the upper floors of the apartment building that was hit said his son and wife were injured by falling masonry.
“These rocks that you see here weigh 100kg, they fell on a 13kg kid,” Moussa Zahran told Reuters news agency as he surveyed the damage.
“I removed [the rocks] and… handed my son to the civil defence through the window. I carried my wife and came downstairs and got out behind the building… I thank God, glory be to Him, for this miracle.”
An Irish Times correspondent cited a member of the civil defence at the scene as saying that those killed whose bodies were found complete included seven women and three children, external – a seven-month-old baby and two girls aged seven and 12.
Neighbours also said the building was housing displaced people who had fled from other areas, she added.
There was no evacuation warning ahead of the strike, according to Reuters.
The Lebanese health ministry gave a preliminary death toll of 20 from the strike on Barja late on Tuesday but did not provide an updated figure on Wednesday.
