Lebanon said 16 people were killed in Israeli strikes on municipality buildings in the southern city of Nabatiyeh, including relief teams attending a crisis management meeting.

Nabatiyeh mayor Ahmad Kahil was among those killed in the strikes which hit two municipality buildings while the emergency meeting was underway, said the province’s governor Howaida Turk, calling it a “massacre”.

The attacks were among 11 strikes on Nabatiyeh city and its surroundings that created “a kind of belt of fire” in the area, Turk told AFP.

According to the health ministry, 16 people were killed and 52 others wounded in the municipality strikes.

The Israeli military said its forces hit “dozens of Hezbollah terrorist targets in the Nabatiyeh area and dismantled underground infrastructure” used by the Iran-backed armed group in southern Lebanon.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the strikes, which he said “deliberately targeted a meeting of the municipal council that was discussing the city’s services and relief situation”.