Reuters reports:

An Israeli airstrike destroyed the municipal headquarters in a major town in south Lebanon on Wednesday, killing 16 people including the mayor, in the biggest attack on an official Lebanese state building since the Israeli air campaign began.

Lebanese officials denounced the attack, which also wounded more than 50 people in Nabatieh, a provincial capital, saying it was proof that Israel’s campaign against the Hezbollah armed group was now shifting to target the Lebanese state.

The Israelis “intentionally targeted a meeting of the municipal council to discuss the city’s service and relief situation” to aid people displaced by the Israeli campaign, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said.

The U.N. mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said its peacekeepers observed an Israeli tank firing at their watchtower near southern Lebanon’s Kfar Kela on Wednesday morning. Two cameras were destroyed, and the tower was damaged, UNIFIL said.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the UNIFIL statement.

Israel has previously called on the United Nations to move members of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon out of the combat zone for their safety. UNIFIL says its troops have come under Israeli attack several times, though Israel has disputed accounts of those incidents.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, on a visit to northern Israel near the border, said Israel would not halt its assault on Hezbollah to allow negotiations. [Continue reading…]