Lebanon says six dead in Israeli strikes on Nabatiyeh

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon said six people were killed in Israeli strikes Wednesday on municipality buildings in the southern city of Nabatiyeh, where Heibollah and ally Amal hold sway, with an official saying the mayor was among the dead.

The attacks were among 11 strikes on Nabatiyeh city and its surroundings that created "a kind of belt of fire" in the area, the local official had earlier told AFP.

They prompted a UN call for the protection of civilians, while Lebanon's prime minister said the strikes targeted a meeting of the city's municipal council.

"The Israeli enemy raid... on two buildings, that of the Nabatiyeh municipality and the union of municipalities, killed six people and injured 43," the health ministry said.

It added that the death toll was preliminary and that rescuers were still searching for survivors under the rubble.

"The mayor of Nabatiyeh, among others... was martyred. It's a massacre," Nabatiyeh governor Howaida Turk told AFP.

She added that the mayor, Ahmad Kahil, had been in the municipality building with his team during a daily crisis management meeting.

The Israeli army said its forces hit "dozens of Hizbollah terrorist targets in the Nabatiyeh area and dismantled underground infrastructure used by Hezbollah's Radwan Forces in southern Lebanon".

Hizbollah-affiliated rescuers said the strikes destroyed the municipality building and a nearby medical facility, with two doctors among the dead.

The Lebanese civil defence said the strikes killed one of its staff members who was at the municipality building with colleagues.

Lebanon's official National News Agency said the Nabatiyeh strikes also hit a library and shopping centre. 

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the strikes, which he said "deliberately targeted a meeting of the municipal council that was discussing the city's services and relief situation".

The UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said "civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times."

AFP footage showed several plumes of grey smoke rising from Nabatiyeh, following the consecutive strikes.

On Saturday, Israeli strikes razed the city's main marketplace and wounded eight people, the health ministry had said.

At least 1,356 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel launched an intense air campaign on September 23, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.

The escalation followed nearly a year of cross-border fire between Hezbollah and Israeli troops over the Gaza war.

Meanwhile, EU nations with peacekeepers in Lebanon Wednesday expressed "the shared will to exert maximum political and diplomatic pressure on Israel" to prevent further "incidents" against the UN mission, Italy said.

Italy and France organised a video conference among the 16 EU countries that participate in UNIFIL, where the defence ministers "strongly condemned" attacks the mission has blamed on Israel, the Italian defence ministry said in a statement.

It said it called the meeting -- one day before an EU summit opens in Brussels -- to seek a joint approach to fire against the peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, as Israel wages a ground offensive against the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

"Another key point that emerged from the meeting was the shared will to exert maximum political and diplomatic pressure on Israel, so that no further incidents occur," it said.

"At the same time, it was made clear that Hezbollah cannot use UNIFIL personnel as a shield in the conflict."