Lebanon's Health Ministry puts its war toll at 4,346 killed since March

Lebanon's Health Ministry said on Sunday that 4,346 people have been killed and 12,301 wounded in Israeli attacks on the country since March 2.

Its Emergency Operations Center put the period covered at March 2 to August 16, and recorded 11 people killed and 19 wounded in two Israeli airstrikes on Saturday alone.

Four of those deaths were in the town of Deir al-Zahrani in the Nabatieh district of southern Lebanon, where 17 people were wounded, among them a child and 11 women. A strike on the town of Ansar, in the same district, killed seven people, three of them children and two of them women, and wounded two others.

The ministry's previous count, issued on August 9, stood at 4,335 killed and 12,277 wounded. Every death added in the week between the two figures came from Saturday's two strikes, as did 19 of the 24 additional injuries — which is why a weekly total that moves by 11 is not evidence of a quiet week, but of a single one.

Airstrikes across several areas of southern Lebanon began early on Saturday, alongside artillery shelling and the demolition of homes. Israeli forces said the attacks were directed at Hezbollah infrastructure in the Nabatieh and Ansar areas, and gave no account of the casualties the ministry recorded.

Lebanese authorities say the attacks since March have driven more than one million people from their homes. Israeli forces hold positions inside southern Lebanon, some of them held for decades and others taken during the war of 2023 to 2024, and have pushed more than 10 kilometres into Lebanese territory during the current campaign.