Israeli airstrike kills town mayor and 15 others in southern Lebanon

At least 16 people were killed, including a mayor, and 50 others were injured in an Israeli strike targeting a municipal HQ in southern Lebanon on Wednesday. 

Lebanese and UN officials denounced the incident. At least five of those killed were municipal staff who were coordinating aid efforts for civilians in the area. 

The Israelis "intentionally targeted a meeting of the municipal council to discuss the city's service and relief situation" to aid people displaced by the Israeli campaign, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said.

Israel also struck at Syria's Mediterranean port city of Latakia early on Thursday, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.

Firefighters are working on extinguishing fires that had broken out, SANA added, while Syrian state television reported the country's air defences had confronted Israeli targets over Latakia.

The UN mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said its peacekeepers observed an Israeli tank firing at their watchtower near southern Lebanon's Kfar Kela on Wednesday morning. Two cameras were destroyed, and the tower was damaged, UNIFIL said.

UNIFIL says its troops have come under Israeli attack several times, though Israel has disputed accounts of those incidents.

Israel also resumed airstrikes in Beirut on Wednesday, after a multi-day lull in activity in the area. 

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, on a visit to northern Israel near the border, said Israel would not halt its assault on Hezbollah to allow negotiations.

"We will hold negotiations only under fire. I said this on day one, I said it in Gaza and I am saying it here," he said according to a statement from his office.

Israel launched its ground and air campaign in Lebanon to dismantle Hezbollah after a year during which the Iran-backed militant group fired across the border in support of the Palestinian militants Hamas in Gaza.

In recent weeks Israel has assassinated Hezbollah's senior leadership and pushed into southern border towns, saying its aim is to make it safe for tens of thousands of Israelis to return to homes in Israel's north evacuated under Hezbollah fire.

Israel first issued an evacuation notice for Nabatieh, a city of tens of thousands of people, on Oct. 3. At the time, the city's Mayor Ahmed Kahil told Reuters he would not leave.

Israel said on Wednesday it struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in the Nabatieh area and its navy also hit dozens of targets in southern Lebanon.

It said it had "dismantled" a tunnel network used by Hezbollah's elite Radwan Forces in the heart of a town near the border with Israel, publishing a video showing multiple explosions rocking a cluster of buildings. Lebanese officials said it was the small town of Mhaibib.