At least 28 people were killed Tuesday in Israeli airstrikes on two houses in central Lebanon where displaced families were said to be living, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

Twenty people, mostly women and children, were killed in Joun, and another eight were killed near Baalchmay. Both villages are in the Mount Lebanon region and outside areas where the armed group Hezbollah has a strong presence.

The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah “terrorist facilities.” Earlier, it hit what it said were a number of Hezbollah targets in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Meanwhile, two people were killed by Hezbollah rocket fire in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya.

It came a day after Israel’s defense minister ruled out a ceasefire with Hezbollah until its war aims were met.

The Israeli military went on the offensive against Hezbollah – which it bans as a terrorist organization – after almost a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the Gaza war.

Israel says it wants to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of residents of Israel’s northern border area displaced by rocket attacks Hezbollah launched in support of the Palestinians a day after its ally Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel from October 7, 2023.

More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, including 2,600 in the seven weeks since Israel launched an intense air campaign followed by a ground invasion in the south, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Another 1.2 million people were displaced.

On Tuesday morning, the Israeli military carried out at least 10 strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahieh, after issuing evacuation orders for 11 locations.

Lebanese media reported that several buildings were leveled, including a medical center in the Bir al-Abed area, but there were no reports of casualties.

The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah targets, including command centers and weapons production sites.

In the evening, the Israeli military said it had “dismantled most of Hezbollah’s weapons depots and rocket manufacturing” that had been “systematically hidden under civilian buildings” in Dahieh.

Most residents of Dahieh – one of the areas where Hezbollah has a significant presence, along with southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley – have fled as their neighborhoods have been repeatedly targeted since September.

On Tuesday afternoon, 20 people were killed, including eight women and eight children, in an Israeli strike on a house in Joun, in the Chouf mountains near the southern coastal city of Sidon, Lebanon’s health ministry said on Wednesday.

The state-run National News Agency reported that displaced families were staying there.

Residents and a security official said another house where displaced families had taken refuge was hit in Baalchmay, 30 km (20 miles) to the northeast, killing eight people and wounding five.

Wael Murtada told the Associated Press that the dwelling had belonged to his uncle and that those inside had fled from Dahieh about 40 days ago. He said at least three children were among the dead.

The Israeli military said Wednesday that the two strikes hit a Hezbollah “terrorist facility,” but gave no details.

Elsewhere in Lebanon, five people were killed in a strike in the southern village of Teffahta, according to the health ministry.

In the northern city of Ain Yaaqoub, Lebanon’s Civil Defense agency said its first responders recovered the bodies of 16 people, including four Syrian refugees, from the rubble of a residential building that was destroyed by an airstrike late Monday.

The Israeli military said its forces targeted a “military structure with a terrorist inside”.

He also said Israeli soldiers were continuing ground operations in southern Lebanon to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure, including rocket launchers.

About 55 projectiles were fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon into Israel on Tuesday, according to the Israeli military.

A rocket hit a warehouse in Nahariya, killing two Israeli men in their 50s.

“There was a lot of destruction and an active fire,” paramedic Dor Vakinin told the AFP news agency.

“We carried out medical examinations on two men who were lying unconscious…Unfortunately, their injuries were too serious and following the examinations we had to pronounce the death of the two.”

Hezbollah said its fighters fired a barrage of rockets at an Israeli military base north of the city of Acre and also targeted troops stationed in several Israeli border communities.

A Hezbollah drone also hit the playground of a kindergarten in a suburb of the Israeli city of Haifa, but no one was injured.

On Monday, new Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X that he told a forum of Israeli generals that “there will be no ceasefire” until Hezbollah can no longer carry out such attacks.

“We will continue to hit Hezbollah with full force until the objectives of the war are achieved. Israel will not agree to any arrangement that does not guarantee Israel’s right to enforce and prevent terrorism alone,” he added.

Katz said the goals were to “disarm Hezbollah and withdraw it beyond the Litani River,” which runs about 30 km north of the border with Israel, as well as “returning the residents of the north safely to their homes.”

Earlier, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said there had been “some progress” after being asked by journalists in Jerusalem about a possible ceasefire.

Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif told a news conference in Beirut: “We hear a lot of talk, but so far, according to my information, nothing official has reached Lebanon or us in this regard.”

The Lebanese government has called for a ceasefire based on the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

The resolution called for Lebanese territory south of Litani to be free of any armed personnel or weapons other than those of the Lebanese state and a UN peacekeeping force.

Israel has long complained that the resolution failed to prevent Hezbollah from building a formidable military presence in the south and firing rockets across the border.