BARJA, Lebanon (AP) 鈥 Lebanese rescuers pulled 30 bodies out of the rubble after a late-night Israeli strike on an apartment building in the town of Barja, Lebanon鈥檚 Civil Defense service said Wednesday as the Mideast wars press on with no signs of abating.
It remained unclear if there were any survivors or bodies still trapped under the debris following the Tuesday night airstrike, which came without warning. There was no statement from the Israeli military and the strike's intended target also was unknown.
Barja, a town just north of the port city of Sidon in central Lebanon, has not been regularly targeted so far in the conflict.
鈥淪omething pulled me hard, and then the explosion happened,鈥 said Moussa Zahran, who was at home with his wife and son when the building was hit. He said he couldn't see but started digging through the rubble until he found his wife and son 鈥 alive but injured 鈥 and pulled them out. Both are still in the hospital, he said.
Another building resident, Muhyiddin Al-Qalaaji, said he was at work when the strike happened and heard the news from his wife who called him frantically.
"There are many dead and injured,鈥 he said as he carried out what he could salvage of the family's belongings on Wednesday morning.
Civil defense official Mostafa Danaj said some of the neighbors have reported there are still people missing.
Israeli forces and the Hezbollah militant group have been clashing for more than a year, since Hezbollah started firing rockets across the border soon after the Palestinian Hamas' there.
The war on the Lebanese front has substantially escalated since mid-September, with Israel launching a massive aerial bombardment and ground invasion.
A rocket attack killed a foreign worker near the northern Israeli city of Acre on Wednesday, according to the Magen David Adom rescue service. The worker鈥檚 nationality was not immediately known.
Sirens blared across northern and central Israel earlier in the day, including in the populous metropolitan area of Tel Aviv, as Hezbollah launched 10 rockets. A large portion of a rocket slammed into a parked car in the central Israeli city of Raanana. Rockets also struck an open area near Israel鈥檚 main airport, Israeli media reported, though the airport said flights were operating as normally.
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a surprise announcement that sparked protests across the country. Gallant鈥檚 replacement is Foreign Minister Israel Katz, a longtime Netanyahu loyalist and veteran Cabinet minister.
Israeli police said they arrested 40 people during protests on Tuesday night when the demonstrators blocked Israel鈥檚 main highway in Tel Aviv. Thousands of people gathered outside Israel's parliament on Wednesday night to protest against Gallant's firing.
Netanyahu were repeatedly at odds over the war in Gaza but the prime minister had avoided letting go of his rival before the U.S. presidential election on Tuesday, in which .
Gallant during indirect negotiations with Hamas over a cease-fire and hostage release, and was seen as more open to reaching .
The Hamas attack that triggered the war killed some 1,200 people 鈥 mostly civilians 鈥 and Palestinian militants . Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, around a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel鈥檚 offensive has killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. They do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children.
Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted in 2023, and some 13,500 have been wounded in Lebanon, about a quarter of them women and children, the Health Ministry reported.
Hezbollah aerial attacks have killed 73 people in Israel so far, including 30 soldiers, according to local authorities.
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Associated Press writers Abby Sewell in Beirut and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.
