Israeli airstrikes struck central Beirut on Thursday evening, killing at least 22 people and injuring dozens, Lebanon’s health ministry said, leaving two neighborhoods smoldering and fueling Israel’s bloody war with Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.
The strikes apparently targeted two residential buildings in separate areas west of Beirut, according to an AP photographer at the scene, demolishing a multi-story building and clearing the ground floor of another.
The Israeli military said it was looking into the reported strikes in the Lebanese capital. Israeli airstrikes were more frequent in areas south of Beirut, where Hezbollah bases most of its operations.
Thursday’s strikes follow a year of talks between Hezbollah and Israel that have turned into an all-out war in recent weeks, with Israel stepping up heavy strikes across Lebanon and launching ground attacks. Hezbollah has increased its rocket fire on populated areas deep in Israel, causing few casualties but disrupting daily life.
The attack occurred on the same day that Israeli forces opened fire on United Nations troops in southern Lebanon, wounding two of them. The attack drew widespread criticism and prompted the Italian Ministry of Defense to summon the Israeli embassy in protest.
Ahead of the latest strike in Beirut, Lebanon’s disaster agency said an Israeli attack the previous day had killed 28 people, bringing the death toll to 2,169 in Lebanon since the outbreak of war last October.
Hezbollah attacks have killed 28 civilians in northern Israel since the start of the war, as well as 39 Israeli soldiers, including both in northern Israel since last October and in southern Lebanon since the Israeli invasion left 1.2 million people in Lebanon .
Even in light of Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and tensions with Iran, Israel has continued to strike what it says are Palestinian terrorist targets across the Gaza Strip.
Earlier on Thursday, an Israeli strike on a refugee school in central Gaza killed at least 27 people, Palestinian medical officials said. The Israeli military said it was targeting Palestinian terrorists, but the people sheltering them there said the strike attacked a meeting of aid workers.
Israeli airstrikes hit central Beirut
Witnesses reported dozens of ambulances and people gathering at damaged buildings in the two areas hit in central Beirut.
The Ministry of Health in Lebanon said 22 people died and 117 others were injured, without elaborating on who they were. It is not clear what the target was. Recent Israeli airstrikes in areas close to Beirut, especially the densely populated southern areas of the city, have killed the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and other senior commanders.
In the Ras al-Nabaa area, an airstrike appeared to hit the lower part of an eight-story building, setting off a series of loud explosions. The second Israeli strike, on the western side of Burj Abi Haidar, destroyed the entire building, which burst into flames.
Israeli ground forces invaded southern Lebanon on September 30 and have been fighting Hezbollah in a deadly battle ever since. Israel says the ground offensive, which has been focused on a narrow strip, is aimed at pushing back troops so that tens of thousands of Israelis can return to their homes in the north.
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Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, supporting Hamas and the Palestinians, drew Israeli airstrikes to retaliate.
Hezbollah continued to fire rockets into Israel on Thursday, setting off air raid sirens in parts of northern Israel. Several drones flying towards Israel have been intercepted, the military said.
Iran – which supports Hamas, Hezbollah and other armed groups across the region – launched 180 missiles at Israel last week in retaliation for the killing of senior Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that its response to Iran’s missile attack would be “deadly” and “surprising,” without giving further details, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with President Joe Biden.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Israel’s security cabinet will meet Thursday night to discuss the country’s response.
UN peacekeepers are caught up in intense fighting in Lebanon
The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said in a statement that its headquarters and positions were “repeatedly attacked” by Israeli forces. It said an Israeli tank “directly” fired at an observation tower at the army headquarters in the Lebanese city of Naqoura, and that the army attacked an underground area near where the peacekeepers had taken refuge, damaging vehicles and a communications system. It said a special Israeli plane was seen flying at the gate of the house.
The Israeli army admitted to firing at the UN compound in southern Lebanon on Thursday and said it had ordered peacekeepers to “remain in protected areas.”
The two injured UNIFIL soldiers are from Indonesia, according to Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.
UNIFIL, with more than 10,000 peacekeepers from many countries, was established to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon after the 1978 Israeli invasion. The United Nations expanded its mission following the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, allowing peacekeepers to patrol a buffer zone built along the border.
Israel accuses Hezbollah of establishing military infrastructure along the border in violation of a UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war. It warned people to evacuate several communities in southern Lebanon, many of which are outside the safe zone.
The European Union’s chief executive, Josep Borrell, strongly condemned the Israeli strikes that hit UNIFIL positions as “an unacceptable, unjustified act.”
From Italy, which has about 1,000 soldiers deployed as part of UNIFIL, Defense Minister Guido Crosetto went further, saying that Israel had deliberately targeted a UNIFIL base in southern Lebanon in strikes that “could constitute a war crime.”
Several other countries, including France, Spain and Jordan, condemned the Israeli attack.
The UN peacekeeping chief, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, said last week that troops would remain in their positions on Lebanon’s southern border despite Israel’s request that they leave before they begin their campaign against Hezbollah.
Crosetto approved that, saying “the UN and Italy cannot accept orders from the Israeli government.”
The aid organization says the workers were killed in a strike at the school
An Israeli strike in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah killed 27 people, including a child and seven women, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the bodies were brought.
An Associated Press reporter saw ambulances pouring into the hospital and counted the bodies, many of which arrived in pieces.
The Israeli military said it targeted the terrorist center and controlled the interior of the school, without providing evidence. Israel has repeatedly attacked schools that have become shelters in Gaza, accusing soldiers of hiding in them.
Eyewitnesses said that the strike happened when the school administrators met with representatives of the auxiliary team in a room usually used by Hamas-affiliated police who provide security. They said there were no police officers in the room at the time.
The Palestinian branch, Terre des Hommes, which is an aid organization in Switzerland, said in a statement that members of its children’s health team were killed in the strike, without specifying how many.
“There were no militants. There was no Hamas,” said Iftikhar Hamouda, who had fled northern Gaza at the beginning of the war.
“We are heading to the tents. They bombed the tents … In the streets, they bombed us. In the markets, they bombed us. They bombed us in the schools,” he said. “Where should we go?”
The government run by Hamas used a police force of less than tens of thousands of people. They disappeared from the streets after the start of the war as Israel targeted them, but the plainclothes Hamas security forces are still in control of many areas.
Hamas has continued to attack Israeli forces more than a year after an October 7 attack by Palestinian militants in southern Israel sparked the war.
Israeli forces attacked in this attack, killing about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking about 250 people hostage. They are still holding around 100 hostages, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
The Israeli offensive has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who would not say how many fighters there were but said women and children made up more than half of the dead. The war has devastated large areas of Gaza and displaced nearly 90 percent of its 2.3 million people, often multiple times.
