BARJA, Nov 6, 2024 (AFP) - In his bomb-damaged living room, Moussa Zahran mourns his neighbours who fled south Lebanon only to be killed in an Israeli strike as they sought shelter closer to the capital.

"They fled death, but it caught up with them here," the 54-year-old said of the Tuesday night strike on his neighbours' apartment block on the outskirts of the town of Barja, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of Beirut.

The strike hit a first-floor apartment being lived in by families who had fled the south after Israel intensified its campaign against Hezbollah in late September.

According to an initial report from Lebanon's health ministry, 20 people were killed. However, a civil defence official told AFP that rescuers had already recovered 30 bodies from the rubble, most of them women and children.

Zahran said his neighbours moved in about six weeks ago. "I gave them chairs, mattresses and what I found. They are all dead. I am so sad."
Zahran's own family was not spared by the impact of the strike on the next-door building. His wife and son remain in hospital receiving treatment for their wounds.

"I was going to go to sleep, and while I was kissing my son, everything blew up around me," he told AFP, his feet bandaged.

- 'Body parts everywhere' -
"The flames reached my legs and the soles of my feet burned... My wife and son were wounded."

Behind his home, rescue teams have been searching the rubble for survivors since 4 am.

One rescuer picks up school bags filled with clothes and textbooks as a crane works to clear the debris.

A rescuer told AFP it was unclear how many people remained under the rubble. Neighbours had given conflicting accounts of how many people were in the building when it was hit.

"We found children's bodies on the stairs... and body parts everywhere," he said.

A gaping hole in the external wall exposes the living room of one of the apartments.

Three displaced families were living in the building, said Barja mayor Hassan Saad.

- 'Sow fear' -
The mainly Sunni Muslim town is far from being a stronghold of Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

But it was hit by a previous Israeli strike on October 12 which killed four people and wounded 18.

One of the largest towns in the Chouf region, Barja had a pre-war population of 35,000 residents and around 10,000 Syrian refugees.
That number has been swollen by more than 27,000 people displaced by Israeli bombardment of areas furher south, the mayor said.
A Lebanese security source told AFP Tuesday night's strike killed a Hezbollah operative who hailed from the same village as one of the displaced families.

Barja's crisis unit urged "anyone targeted or in danger to move away from the town".

It called on authorities to "calm the situation, protect innocent civilians and ease the tensions that the Israeli enemy seeks to stir up."
Israel occasionally carries out deadly strikes outside Hezbollah strongholds, often targeting buildings housing displaced people.

Mahmoud sits with his family outside a nearby building which was damaged in Tuesday night's strike. They too have fled the south.

"There is no armed presence here, we should have felt safe, but suddenly everything has changed," said the 54-year-old retired soldier, declining to give his full name.

"This is what Israel is: it wants to sow fear and division."