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At least 22 people were killed by a series of Israeli air strikes in the heart of Beirut, stoking fears that Israel’s pursuit of Hizbollah was extending deeper into the Lebanese capital.
The attack struck more than 5km from the southern suburbs that have been a focus of Israel’s intensifying offensive against the Lebanon-based militant movement. It was the second time that Israeli forces have hit central Beirut in less than two weeks.
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati described the strike on Thursday evening as “totally unacceptable” as he renewed his calls for a ceasefire. At least 117 people were wounded in the attack, health authorities said.
Beirut was on edge on Friday as Israeli drones buzzed overhead and warplanes broke the sound barrier. The city is crammed with people fleeing the intense fighting that continued in south Lebanon on Friday.
One of Thursday’s strikes hit a residential building not far from Lebanon’s national museum in an area filled with small shops and apartment blocks. A family of eight, including three children, were killed in the bombing, said a relative who declined to be named. Israel did not say who it was targeting.
“We’re all from southern Lebanon, and were displaced here in recent weeks due to Israeli aggression,” the relative told the Financial Times. “I don’t understand why they targeted us, these are just families.”
Lebanese are increasingly fearful that Israel is widening the scope of its targets by striking areas such as those hit on Thursday that are not known for having Hizbollah presence.
In the dilapidated Burj Abi Haidar neighbourhood, where the other Israeli strike hit, rescue workers were still recovering bodies on Friday, combing through the rubble of what residents said were at least three collapsed buildings.
“A lot of the families around here are poor and have nothing to do with anything,” said Abu Ahmad, who lives in a building near the attack site. His grandfather’s apartment was in one of the collapsed buildings.
The Israel Defense Forces did not issue any warning to residents ahead of Thursday night’s bombing.
Israel says it is fighting the Iran-backed militant group to stop it firing rockets into northern Israel, which has displaced 60,000 Israelis.
Hizbollah says its attacks on Israel are in support of Hamas, the Iran-linked militant group that controls Gaza and whose October 7 rampage in Israel triggered the war.
After nearly a year of fire across the border, Israel assassinated Hizbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah last month. Its troops have since begun a ground offensive in southern Lebanon.
Speaking after a situation assessment with Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency in southern Lebanon, the head of Israel’s military, Herzi Halevi, pledged that the fighting would continue “until we ensure that we can safely return the residents”.
He said: “If anyone considers rebuilding these villages again, they will know that it’s not worth constructing terrorist infrastructure because the IDF will neutralise them again.”
The fighting is having a punishing effect on civilians. Lebanese authorities say 1.2mn people have been forced to flee their homes, and more than 2,000 have been killed, mostly in the past two weeks.
On Thursday, Israeli forces fired a tank shell at the UN peacekeepers’ headquarters in south Lebanon, the UN said, injuring two international troops.
The strike on a watchtower within the base in the village of Ras al-Naqoura was the third time in 24 hours that Israeli fire had struck border posts used by Unifil, the UN’s interim force in Lebanon, the peacekeepers said. The peacekeeping mission patrols the UN-drawn Blue Line between northern Israel and southern Lebanon.
The incidents prompted an outcry from countries contributing to the peacekeeping force, including Italy. Rome’s defence minister, Guido Crosetto, said the incidents “may constitute war crimes”, adding: “This is not a mistake and not an accident.”
The injured Unifil soldiers were Indonesian, the country’s foreign minister Retno Marsudi said. Indonesia contributes 1,231 soldiers to the peacekeeping force, the largest number of the 50 participating countries.
The minister condemned the attack in a speech at a summit in Laos on Friday, warning that the credibility of the UN Security Council was being undermined by what she said were “ongoing violations of international law without meaningful consequences”.
Additional reporting by Giuliana Ricozzi in Rome
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