BEIRUT

At least 49 people were killed in a series of airstrikes in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and the country’s south on Sunday, the Health Ministry and local media reported.

In one of the deadliest strikes, Israeli warplanes hit a three-story building in the town of Seir el-Gharbiya in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, killing 19 people, mostly women and children, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Four more people were killed in an airstrike on the town of Qana in Tyre in the country’s south, it added.

Two others were killed in another strike in the southern town of Ghazieh in Sidon.

The ministry earlier said that an Israeli strike killed eight people, including five of the same family, in Tefahta town in southern Lebanon.

The ministry added that efforts to remove debris and search for survivors were still ongoing.

Three more people were killed and four others injured in an airstrike in the town of Jbal El-Botm in Tyre, the ministry added.

In Beirut, four people lost their lives and 10 others were injured when an Israeli warplane hit a hotel room in the Raouche neighborhood, it said.

Israeli warplanes also struck a house in Aaitat in southern Lebanon, killing three people and injuring several others, the state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported.

Six more people from the same family were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the southern town of Dweir, according to the same source.

The attacks targeted a house and a car repair hangar in the Al-Sidr neighborhood in the town, destroying them completely, NNA said.

In Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, Israeli forces struck around 15 workers -- most of them Syrian nationals -- as they were unloading a pickup truck carrying chickens at a farm in the town of Yahmar al-Shaqif.

According to NNA, ambulance crews were unable to reach the area to evacuate the wounded and retrieve the dead due to the severity of Israeli shelling.

The attacks came one day after at least 55 people were killed, including children, in a series of Israeli airstrikes across eastern and southern Lebanon on Saturday.

Israel has expanded its military campaign in Lebanon since Monday, following limited rocket fire by Hezbollah amid broader regional tensions linked to the war launched by Israel and the US against Iran.

Regional tensions escalated last week when the US and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran, killing more than 1,200 people, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Tehran retaliated with drone and missile strikes targeting Israel and Gulf countries that are home to US military assets.

The escalation spilled to Lebanon, with Israel and the Hezbollah group exchanging cross-border attacks that have killed nearly 400 people, injuring over 1,100 and displacing thousands since Monday, according to Lebanese figures.

*Writing by Rania Abushamala and Mohammad Sio in Istanbul