Smoke rises from the site of Israeli strikes that targeted the town of Shmester in the Bekaa region of Lebanon on October 23, 2025. Photo: PressTV.
Israel has launched massive airstrikes on Lebanon, targeting southern and eastern parts of the country, killing at least two people and injuring several others, including school children.
Lebanese media reports said that the aerial raids on Thursday targeted southern and eastern parts of Lebanon, including the Bekaa Valley and the outskirts of Hermel, as well as the town of Shmistar, where a school was damaged by the attacks.
According to al-Manar and al-Mayadeen’s correspondents in the area, at least two civilians were killed and a number of others were injured on the outskirts of Shmestar, where the Israeli warplanes carried out a series of strikes on the surrounding highlands west of Baalbek.
The bombardment also shattered windows, injuring several students at two local schools.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Education and Higher Education condemned the Israeli attacks near Shmestar and Tariya High Schools in the Baalbek district.
The ministry called on governments worldwide to exert pressure to halt the persistent Israeli aggression, emphasizing that the attacks endanger schools and civilians, leaving martyrs and wounded, while terrorizing local communities.
Separately, al-Mayadeen said that Israeli strikes also hit the outskirts of Nabi Sheet, near the Lebanese-Syrian border, as part of the ongoing aerial bombardment in eastern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency confirmed that “Israeli warplanes launched a series of violent strikes on the eastern mountain range” in the Bekaa region near the border with Syria.
It said two Israeli strikes targeted the Hermel range, in the northernmost part of the Bekaa. The viral images show massive plumes of smoke rising from the mountainous areas in the southern region.
Israeli media claim the strikes hit military sites belonging to the Radwan force of the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah. It added that the site was used for the production of strategic weapons.
The attacks mark yet another violation of the ceasefire agreement with Lebanon that came into force in November 2024.
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On Wednesday, an Israeli drone strike in Ain Qana killed one civilian, adding another attack to the series of strikes that contravene the November 27, 2024, ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel.
Repeated Israeli attacks, extending across southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and Beirut’s Southern Suburb, have resulted in dozens of casualties and significant damage to civilian infrastructure. Since the ceasefire, over 270 Lebanese civilians have been killed in Israeli strikes.
In 2023, the Israeli regime markedly escalated its deadly aggression against the country in response to Hezbollah’s determined and back-to-back solidarity operations in support of the Gaza Strip, which had come under a war of genocide by Tel Aviv.
The strikes would exponentially target sensitive and strategic sites across the occupied Palestinian territories, and eventually forced the regime to agree to a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah in November last year.
Sheikh Naim Qassem, the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah’s secretary-general, in remarks on Tuesday, stressed that Lebanon’s stability was contingent upon halting Israeli violations and aggression, and warned about the country being dragged by the United States into Tel Aviv’s so-called “Greater Israel” scheme.
The resistance leader reaffirmed that Hezbollah’s weapons were an integral part of Lebanon’s strength and sovereignty, emphasizing that the regime did not want a strong Lebanon.”
Sheikh Qassem cautioned that the American intervention in Lebanon and the region “is extremely malicious,” describing Washington as the primary force “leading genocide and massacres.”
(PressTV)
