Two killed and at least 20 injured in Israeli strike near Deir Qanoun

Twenty people were wounded and two women were killed, including one medic, in an Israeli attack on southern Lebanon around midnight on Thursday evening. Israeli fighter jets bombed a three-story house, completely destroying it and damaging nearby buildings, between the towns of Jenata and Deir Qanoun al-Nahr (Sour).

A civil defense source reported that the first person killed was Sally Salaiki, a woman who worked as a paramedic with the Amal Movement's al-Risala Scout medical association. The second woman killed was Dalal Ezzedine. The twenty injured included children and infants, and all were taken to hospitals in Sour for treatment.

This is the highest number of injuries in a single Israeli attack since the start of the war. Israeli fighter jets struck the Jenata-Deir Qanoun road. Deir Qanoun is the home village of the chair of Hezbollah's Executive Council, Hashem Safieddine, who is also Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's maternal cousin.

A spokesperson from the party claimed the building was empty and dismissed rumors that Safieddine, deputy party leader Naim Kassem or party co-founder and former leader Subhi al-Tufayli had been targeted in the strike.

Rescue teams are still working to clear the debris after working throughout the night and there may be more victims under the rubble. Videos circulating online show piles of rubble and pockets of flame where fires were ignited by the explosion.

Screenshot from a video circulating online of the aftermath of the strike.

The explosion was so powerful that residents from nearby areas felt its tremors and immediately fled from their homes.

In an airstrike on Tuesday, the Israeli army assassinated Taleb Abdallah, the highest-ranking Hezbollah official killed since the start of the war. Abdallah was the military commander for the central region along the Lebanese-Israeli border. On Wednesday, a day before the strike near his village, Safieddine had warned that Hezbollah would "intensify [its] operations" against Israel in retaliation for Abdallah's killing, saying it should "prepare for weeping and wailing."

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Two days of intense escalation followed. The Israeli army reported more than 215 rockets fired over the border from southern Lebanon on Wednesday and Hezbollah made a record 19 announcements of attacks on barracks, army command headquarters, and even a military vehicle factory. It struck targets more than 20 kilometers south of the border, double the usual range of its attacks.

On Thursday, Hezbollah launched missile attacks against nine Israeli army sites simultaneously, the largest salvo of this kind since October.

The U.S. has been warning Israel against launching a full-scale war against Hezbollah, while far-right Israeli ministers have been calling for a full-scale invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself has threatened intensified operations.

Reporting contributed by Muntasser Abdallah.