UN refugee agency says staff among those killed in Israeli air strikes in Lebanon

Mr Hilal knelt over his daughter’s body, covered in an embroidered blanket, and wept.

He told Reuters news agency that he had left his house in the town of Saksakiyeh on Monday to complete paperwork identifying his family. When he returned, he said, “I found her martyred due to the brutal aggression, the cowardly aggression that is killing children.”

Israel says it has warned Lebanese to leave their homes and put distance between themselves and sites used by Hezbollah.

But Lebanon’s health minister Firass Abiad told the BBC Israel had caused “carnage” and it was “clear” that many victims were civilians, including children and women who were in their homes doing “normal things”.

Israel says it targeted Hezbollah sites, accusing the Iranian-backed group of hiding weapons and rockets in residential homes and of using civilians as human shields.

On Tuesday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue attacking Hezbollah sites. Israel has alleged that some weapons are being stored in civilian homes.

“Anyone who has a missile in their living room and a rocket in their garage will not have a home,” he said in a video posted on social media.

Meanwhile the UN’s children’s agency told the BBC that many of the children in shelters in the capital had been “heavily traumatised”.

Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese are believed to have fled their homes, the country’s foreign minister says.

“Most of them have left in a few minutes without taking anything, just getting their cars and leaving the house,” Edouard Beigbeder from Unicef said.

“Some of them have seen their house being destroyed, and some have witnessed their family members, siblings killed or injured. So those who reached Beirut are heavily traumatised.”

Additional reporting Hugo Bachega and Nafiseh Kohnavard in Beirut