LF official and 2 others killed in Israeli strike on apartment in Ain Saadeh

An Israeli strike targeted an apartment in a residential building in Ain Saadeh on Sunday, a town east of Beirut in the hills overlooking the city, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The area had until now been spared clashes between Hezbollah and Israel, which on Sunday stepped up its strikes on the Lebanese capital's southern suburbs, including an attack that killed four people near Beirut's main public hospital.

Media reports said the strike targeted the third floor of the Maronite Complex's Bloc C. The Lebanese Forces' Yahchouch official Pierre Mouawad, who lived on the second floor, was killed, while his wife was still under the rubble, the reports said. Other reports said two other people were also killed on the second floor.

A man, who lived on the third floor, had shortly left the building on a motorcycle prior to the strike, reports said, suggesting that he was the intended target of the strike.