- As Israeli airstrikes resumed in Beirut, the United Nations has condemned a separate attack on a UNIFIL watchtower that injured two peacekeepers, saying Israel’s actions could amount to “a grave violation of international humanitarian law”
At least 22 people were killed in Israeli strikes on a densely populated area of central Beirut, the Lebanese health ministry said, with a security source saying a Hezbollah figure was the target.
Israel has repeatedly hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, the stronghold of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, over the last two weeks, but Thursday’s raid was only the third time the city centre has been targeted.
“The Israeli enemy’s attacks on the capital Beirut this evening resulted in a new toll of 22 people killed and 117 injured,” the ministry said in a statement.
A Lebanese security source, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, told news agency AFP that Israel had tried to kill a Hezbollah official who often frequented the locations targeted. It was unclear if the official was among the dead.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said the strikes hit the neighbourhoods of Nweiri and Basta.
“The first strike in Beirut targeted the third floor of an eight-storey building” in the Nweiri area, and a second strike hit “a four-storey building … in al-Basta al-Fouqa,” NNA reported.
An AFP photographer at the site of the strike in the Basta area said two old buildings had collapsed, while the windows of surrounding homes had been blown out with the force of the explosion.
Rescue services and local residents were attempting to pull survivors out of the mountain of rubble, with some of them carried away on stretchers.
Firefighters worked to put out a blaze in a residential building hit in the Nweiri area, with residents being evacuated from the upper floors using a ladder, NNA reported.
Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire for nearly a year in fallout from the war in Gaza.
But since 23 September, Israel has escalated its airstrikes on targets in Lebanon, killing more than 1,200 people and forcing more than one million to flee their homes, according to official figures.
UN peacekeepers injured by Israeli tank fire
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said two of its peacekeepers were injured when an Israeli tank fired at a watchtower at the force’s main headquarters in Ras al-Naqoura, hitting the tower and causing the peacekeepers to fall.
There were no casualties in two other incidents, a UN source said.
“Any deliberate attack on peacekeepers is a grave violation of international humanitarian law,” UNIFIL said in a statement, adding it was following up with the Israeli military.
The White House said the United States was deeply concerned by reports that Israeli forces fired on UN positions and was pressing Israel for details.
Israel’s military said in a statement its troops operated in the Naqoura area, “next to a UNIFIL base”.
“Accordingly, the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) instructed the UN forces in the area to remain in protected spaces, following which the forces opened fire in the area,” Israel’s statement said, adding it maintains routine communication with UNIFIL.
Hezbollah said it had fired missiles at Israeli forces on Thursday as they were trying to pull casualties out of the Ras al-Naqoura area, and they were directly hit.
In New York, Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon said Israel recommends “UNIFIL relocate five kilometres north to avoid danger as fighting intensifies.”
@SBS, excluding the headline