Lebanon death toll from Israeli attacks surpasses 1,000

Lebanon’s health ministry says the human toll from Israel’s latest assault has crossed a grim threshold, with more than 1,000 people killed since the campaign began earlier this month.

The ministry reported 1,001 deaths in the country since 2 March, up from a tally of 968 a day earlier.

The count includes 79 women, 118 children and 40 health workers, while 2,584 others have been wounded, the ministry said in a statement.

Lebanese authorities say Israeli attacks have displaced one million people nationwide.

In a further escalation, Israeli warplanes began striking bridges over the Litani River that connect southern Lebanon to the rest of the country, destroying at least two of them, according to Lebanese state media.

The Israeli military said it would hit bridges on the Litani to block Hezbollah from moving fighters and weapons, and it reiterated a call for residents to evacuate the south.

The residential Ahmad Abass Building in the Bachoura neighbourhood of central Beirut lies in ruins after an Israeli attack

Russia, meanwhile, accused Israel of deliberately targeting a TV crew from its state-run RT broadcaster reporting from southern Lebanon, wounding a reporter and a cameraman.

“The crew’s clothing clearly read ‘press’ and they were carrying only cameras and microphones… All these circumstances indicate that the attack on the journalists was deliberate and targeted,” the Russian foreign ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.

The Israeli military said the TV crew was operating in an area where a warning to leave had been issued.

RT reporter Steve Sweeney had been reporting on the destruction of a bridge in southern Lebanon at the time of the attack.

In a post on X this evening, Mr Sweeney said that he and his cameraman have been treated in hospital for their injuries.

He said it was a deliberate and targeted attack on journalists from an Israeli fighter jet.

Fears are growing in Lebanon that cutting off southern Lebanon from the rest of the country could pave the way for a large-scale Israeli military operation into Lebanese territory.

Watch: Building collapses in Beirut after Israeli attack yesterday

Yesterday, an Israeli military officer commanding troops operating in Lebanon said that his troops are “prepared to do all kinds of operations” if the military issued orders to establish positions as far as the Litani, nearly 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of the Israeli border.

Earlier, the Lebanese state electricity company said that Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon had put a main power substation out of service, a sign of expanding Israeli attacks on Lebanese infrastructure.

In a statement carried by Lebanon’s state media, the electricity authority said the attack damaged various parts of the station in Bint Jbeil, impacting power provision in the city and surrounding towns.

France, meanwhile, has announced it will double its humanitarian aid to Lebanon to the value of €17 million.

France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot made the announcement on his social media account as he visited Beirut, as part of efforts to get a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, France’s special envoy for Lebanon, had said earlier this week that it was unreasonable to expect the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah while the country is being bombed by Israel.

Israel has rebuffed an offer of direct talks from Beirut as too little, too late by a government that shares its goal of wanting Hezbollah disarmed but fears that acting against it could risk civil war, sources familiar with the situation said.