The death toll from an Israeli air strike that targeted Hezbollah military commanders in Beirut's southern suburbs this week has risen to 45, Lebanon's health ministry said Sunday.
"The number of dead has risen to 45 people," a ministry statement said, updating an earlier toll of 37 from the Friday attack. It said "work continues to remove the rubble for the third day in a row" and that DNA sampling would be used to determine the identities of some of the bodies.
Hezbollah said that those killed in the deadliest strike in a year of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel included 16 of its members, and that senior leader Ibrahim Aqil and another top commander, Ahmed Wahbi, were among the dead.
Friday's strike sharply escalated the conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed group, and inflicted another blow on Hezbollah after two days of attacks this week in which pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded.
The attacks on communications devices were widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
