At least five people were killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit a five-storey building in south Lebanon, hospital and Lebanese security sources told dpa Thursday.
Among the killed was a woman and her daughter in the airstrike that took place late Wednesday, sources at the Nabih Berri Hospital near the town of Nabatiyeh told dpa.
"We are still carrying out DNA tests to identify more bodies," the hospital source said.
Late on Wednesday, in retaliation for rockets launched from Lebanon into Safad in northern Israel, Israeli warplanes struck a five-storey building in Nabatiyeh, a mainly Shiite town loyal to Hezbollah and their allied Amal movement.
A witness in the area told dpa that the Israeli rockets mainly hit the ground floor and the first floor of the five-storey building.
Hezbollah militants at the scene told dpa that there are more bodies still under the rubble, but did not specify whether they were Hezbollah members or civilians.
Nabatiyeh, usually a bustling market town, was deserted on Thursday morning as schools, universities and businesses were closed due to fears of further escalation.
On Wednesday, the Israeli army said it began an "extensive" wave of attacks on Lebanese territories after rockets fired from Lebanon hit the city of Safed in northern Israel, killing a 20-year-old female soldier.
The Israeli army's chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, stressed late on Wednesday that his country is getting ready for a possible war in the north.
Tensions on the northern border "will not end without the inhabitants of the north being able to return to their homes with a very high level of security," he said.
Hezbollah's senior official Hashim Safi Eddine threatened Israel with harsh retaliation.
Tens of thousands of residents have fled their homes near the border areas between Israel and Lebanon amid the worst escalation since the second Lebanon war in 2006.
The clashes along Israel's northern border are triggering fears of a spillover of the conflict that began on October 7, triggered by the unprecedented massacre in Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and some 240 kidnapped at the hands of Hamas and other extremist groups.
There have been repeated clashes between the Israeli army and Hezbollah or other militant groups along the Israeli-Lebanese border since the war began in Gaza.
Nearly 200 Hezbollah fighters have died, according to the Iranian-backed Shiite militia. Civilians on both sides have also been killed.
