ISTANBUL 

Two people were killed and 15 others injured Thursday in Israeli airstrikes targeting two towns in the Baalbek-Hermel province, eastern Lebanon, the Health Ministry said. 

“An Israeli airstrike on the town of Yammoune in Baalbek-Hermel resulted in the deaths of two people and injuries to nine others,” Lebanon’s official news agency quoted a Health Ministry statement as saying.

It added that an Israeli airstrike on the town of Sefri in Baalbek-Hermel wounded six people.

Israel has mounted a huge air campaign in Lebanon against what it claims are Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23.

The death toll from Israel’s ongoing onslaught on Lebanon since Oct. 8, 2023 has surged to 2,412 with over 11,260 injured.

The aerial campaign is an escalation from a year of cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of its offensive on the Gaza Strip, in which Israel has killed more than 42,400 people, most of them women and children, since a Hamas attack last year.

Despite international warnings that the Middle East was on the brink of a regional war amid Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, Tel Aviv expanded the conflict on Oct. 1 by launching an incursion into southern Lebanon.