Massacre of innocence: Israel bombards Lebanon, kills 274

Agencies Bierut: Israeli air raids hitting mostly southern and eastern Lebanon have killed at least 274 people and wounded at least 1,024, according to the country’s health minister, in the deadliest day of conflict in Lebanon since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. Firass Abiad said the death toll on Monday included 21 children, 39 women and two medics as the bombardments hit homes, medical centres, ambulances and cars of people trying to flee. Tens of thousands of Lebanese fled the south, and the main highway out of the southern port city of Sidon was jammed with cars heading towards Beirut in the biggest exodus since the 2006 fighting.

The government ordered schools and universities to close across most of the country and began preparing shelters for people displaced from the south. Some attacks hit residential areas of towns in the south and the Bekaa Valley in the east. One strike hit a wooded area as far away as Byblos in central Lebanon, more than 129km (80 miles) from the border and north of Beirut. The Israeli army said it had struck more than 800 sites used by the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.

In Gaza, Israeli attacks kill 24

Gaza’s Health Ministry says 24 Palestinians were killed and 60 wounded in the latest 24-hour reporting period. Israeli forces pound Gaza, killing a mother and four of her children in an attack on Deir el-Balah, and 10 more Palestinians in two separate attacks on schools-turned-shelters. At least 41,431 people have been killed and 95,818 injured in Israel’s war on Gaza. In Israel, the number of those killed in the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 was at least 1,139 while more than 200 people were taken captive.