18 people were killed and 4 others were injured in an Israeli airstrike on a residential building housing displaced people in the town of Ayto in Zgharta district, northern Lebanon, on Monday.

The Lebanese Red Cross announced, in a post on the "X" platform, "the killing of 18 people and the injury of 4 others as a result of the Israeli raid on a residential building in the town of Ayto," which includes several families who were displaced to escape the escalating Israeli occupation bombing of their towns in the south.

Earlier today, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said in a statement that "the Israeli occupation raid on the town of Ayto resulted in the initial death toll of 9 people and the injury of one person."

Relief and rubble removal efforts are still ongoing, according to the same statement.

The Lebanese News Agency confirmed that "Israeli warplanes launched a raid, the first since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on Lebanon, on a residential apartment in the town of Ayto."

Since September 23, Israel has expanded the scope of the genocide it has been committing in Palestine since October 7, 2023, to include Lebanon by launching air strikes on the capital Beirut, in addition to ground incursions in the south.

The Israeli occupation raids in Lebanon, until Sunday evening, resulted in 1,539 martyrs and 4,471 wounded, including a large number of women and children, and more than 1,340,000 displaced persons, according to official Lebanese data.

The Lebanese Ministry of Health announced that yesterday's Israeli occupation raids on Lebanon resulted in three martyrs and 84 wounded in southern Lebanon, Nabatieh, Bekaa, and Baalbek-Hermel. Thus, the total number of martyrs since the beginning of the aggression on October 8 has risen to 2,309 martyrs and 10,782 wounded.