“Something pulled me hard and then there was an explosion,” said Moussa Zahran, who was at home with his wife and son when the building was hit. He said he couldn’t see but started digging through the rubble until he found his wife and son, who were alive but injured, and he pulled them out. “They are both still in hospital,” he said.

Another resident of the building, Muhyiddin Al-Qalaaji, said that he was at work during the strike and heard the news from his wife, who called him in alarm.

“There are many dead and injured,” he said Wednesday morning during the effort to rescue the family’s belongings.

Civil defense official Mostafa Danaj said some neighbors were still reporting missing persons.

Israeli forces and the Hezbollah militant group have been clashing for more than a year since Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border after Palestinian Hamas’ offensive into southern Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, kicking off the ongoing war there.

The war on the Lebanese front has escalated significantly since mid-September, with Israel launching a massive aerial bombardment and ground invasion.

On Wednesday, sirens blared across northern and central Israel, including the crowded metropolitan area of ​​Tel Aviv, as Hezbollah launched 10 rockets. No injuries were reported.

The bulk of the rocket hit a parked car in the central Israeli city of Raanana. According to Israeli media reports, the rockets also hit an open area near Israel’s main airport, but it was stated that flights at the airport continued normally.

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in a surprise announcement that sparked nationwide protests. Gallant was replaced by Secretary of State Israel Katz, a longtime Netanyahu loyalist and senior cabinet minister.

Israeli police said they arrested 40 people during protests Tuesday night after protesters blocked Israel’s main highway in Tel Aviv. Another night of protests over Gallant’s firing was planned across Israel for Wednesday evening.

Netanyahu and Gallant have repeatedly clashed over the war in Gaza, but the prime minister has refrained from abandoning his rival ahead of Tuesday’s US presidential election, which saw former President Donald Trump win a comeback victory.

Gallant had turned down some of Netanyahu’s demands during indirect negotiations with Hamas over a ceasefire and the release of hostages and was seen as more open to reaching at least a temporary ceasefire.

The Hamas offensive that triggered the war killed nearly 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and Palestinian militants kidnapped 250 people that day. There are still nearly 100 hostages in Gaza, and about a third of them are believed to be dead.

Palestinian health officials say more than 43,000 people died in the Israeli offensive. They do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children.

The Ministry of Health reported that at least 3,000 people have been killed and about 13,500 injured in Lebanon since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah broke out in 2023, about a quarter of them women and children.

Hezbollah continues to send dozens of rockets and unmanned aerial vehicles to Israel. The bullets have killed 72 people in Israel so far, including 30 soldiers, according to Netanyahu’s office.