The Lebanese health ministry has said that a powerful airstrike has killed 15 people in central Beirut and 13 others were killed in attacks northeast of the Lebanese capital as Israel pressed its offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, Reuters reports.

Eight of the victims, four of them children, were killed in a strike on the village of Chimstar and five people died in an attack on the village of Bodai, the ministry said. Both villages are in the Baalbek district.

In Beirut, an eight-storey building was struck with four missiles, including bunker-penetrating types designed to hit underground targets, said a Lebanese security source.

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