22 killed in Israeli airstrike in north Lebanon village, hit for the first time

At least 22 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a north Lebanon village on Monday, the first to hit the area since the war began last year.

The death toll gradually climbed as the Lebanese Red Cross and rescuers pulled bodies out of the rubble in Aito, a village in the Christian-majority Zgharta district. Rescue efforts continued Monday evening.

The official National News Agency said Israel targeted a "residential apartment" in the village.

A Lebanese security official told AFP the building "housed families displaced from Lebanon's south, and was targeted shortly after a man had arrived in a car". He requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

An AFP photographer at the site of the strike said it had levelled the residential building at the entrance to the village.

Body parts were scattered in the rubble, with Red Cross volunteers searching for survivors in the wreckage while ambulances evacuated wounded people.

The Lebanese army imposed a security cordon in the area, where the strike had also sparked a fire, he said.

So far, Israeli strikes have mainly been concentrated in south Lebanon, the Beqaa region, and Beirut's southern suburbs, Hezbollah's main bastion.

On Saturday, the health ministry reported two dead and four wounded in an Israeli strike on Deir Billa, in the northern Batroun district, also a first.

DNA tests were being carried out to determine the identity of the remains, the statement added.

After almost a year of cross-border fire between Hezbollah and Israel over the Gaza war, Israel on September 23 launched an intense air campaign, which came days after thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies, mainly in the hands of Hezbollah members, were detonated.

More 2,300 people have been killed since fighting began over a year ago, including Hezbollah fighters and civilians. The vast majority of civilians have been killed since September 23.