Beirut, Lebanon - Lebanon's health ministry said 40 people had been killed in Israeli strikes on the country's east, including the main city of Baalbek, Wednesday, with rescuers still looking for survivors under the rubble.

"The series of Israeli enemy strikes on the Bekaa Valley and Baalbek" killed "40 people and injured 53", the ministry said in a statement giving a preliminary toll.

The toll includes 11 people killed in the city of Baalbek, nine of them in the Shikan district, a densely-packed Sunni neighborhood in the Shiite-majority city – where the Iran-backed Hezbollah group holds sway.

An AFP correspondent in Baalbek saw rescuers searching for survivors under the rubble after a strike on the poor neighborhood.

Israel-Gaza War Netanyahu fires defense minister in move that sparks massive protests in Israel

He said the city's famed Palmyra hotel had also been damaged in nearby strikes, with the health ministry reporting two people had been killed there.

An Israeli strike also killed 16 people in the village of Nasriyah, the ministry said.

"Rescue and rubble removal operations are still ongoing in search of missing persons," the ministry said.

Israel's army had not issued an evacuation warning for Lebanon's east.

Israel escalated its air raids on Hezbollah strongholds in south Lebanon, Beirut, and the eastern Bekaa Valley from September 23, after a year of cross-border fire.

A week later, it sent in ground troops to southern Lebanon.

More than a year of clashes that escalated into war in September have killed at least 3,050 people in Lebanon, according to health ministry figures.