BEIRUT, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Nine people were killed and 10 others injured on Saturday in Israeli airstrikes on villages and towns in eastern and southern Lebanon, media and sources said.

The official Lebanese National News Agency said that five people were killed and seven others injured in an Israeli raid on a residential apartment in the town of Baaloul in western Bekaa. The mayor of Sohmor, Haidar Shahla, was among the dead, it said.

Civil defense teams and the Lebanese Red Cross worked to transfer the bodies of the dead and the injuries, including three critical ones, to a hospital in the city of Joub Jannine, a civil defense source said.

The search is still ongoing for missing persons under the rubble, it added.

In a separate incident, three people were killed, and another injured in an Israeli raid on the village of Zefta in southern Lebanon, the Public Health Emergency Operations Center said.

Moreover, a Hezbollah official was killed, and two of his family members were injured in an Israeli raid on a residential apartment in the town of Chtaura, eastern Lebanon, according to military sources.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah announced in a statement that it had bombed the cities of Safed and Haifa in northern Israel with drones and missiles in response to Israeli attacks on southern villages.

It also launched missiles and drones on several Israeli sites in the occupied Golan Heights and northern Israel, such as Avivim, al-Malikiyah military base, Zar'it, al-Marj, Kiryat Shmona, Shlomi, and Ras al-Naqoura, causing casualties, the statement said.

Since Sept. 23, the Israeli army has been launching an unprecedented, intensive air attack on Lebanon in an escalation with Hezbollah.

The exchange of fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli army along the Lebanese-Israeli border has been ongoing since Oct. 8, 2023, amid concerns of a wider conflict as the war between Hamas and Israel continues in the Gaza Strip. Enditem

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