A flurry of Israeli strikes on Friday and into Saturday, centered in the Bekaa Valley in the eastern Lebanon, have left at least 12 people dead and over 30 others wounded, including a large number of civilians. At least three children were reportedly among the casualties.
The strikes in Bekaa Valley struck what is described as a Hezbollah command center in the village of Rayak, and killed eight Hezbollah members, and Hezbollah confirmed that included Muhammad Yaghi, a high-ranking Hezbollah military figure.
The IDF claimed that when they carried out the attack Hezbollah was “operating to accelerate readiness and force build-up processes, while planning fire attacks toward Israel.” Since the ceasefire went into effect in November of 2024, Hezbollah has not fired a single rocket at Israeli territory. Israel, by contrast, has carried out thousands of strikes on Lebanese territory since then.
Strike on Ain el-Hilweh refugee camp 2/20/2026 | Image from X
Other attacks were reported elsewhere in eastern Lebanon and also against the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh, near Sidon. That strike killed two Palestinians in the Hittin neighborhood of the camp.
The IDF narrative in that case was that the strike targeted a “Hamas command centre from which terrorists operated,” though camp officials say that the building they hit was actually being rented out to a person distributing food aid, and that the casualties in the camp were civilians.
Israel last launched a major attack on this camp in November, when they attacked what they presented as a “training compound” but was actually just a mosque parking lot. 13 civilians were killed in that strike, most of them children.
Hamas issued a statement slamming Israel, saying that “targeting a camp housing thousands of Palestinian refugees and densely populated with civilians represents a dangerous escalation and a blatant disregard for all international laws and norms.”
