The Israeli army carried out strikes this Saturday in the heart of Beirut, destroying a residential building and killing 11 people according to the authorities, with the war between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah seeing no respite despite international efforts for a ceasefire.
And “senior Hezbollah official was targeted” by the raid in the Basta neighborhood, said a Lebanese security source without specifying his identity or his fate, while Israel has practically decimated the leadership of the armed movement by killing several of its leaders in recent months.
Israel says it wants to put Hezbollah and Hamas, allies of Iran, its enemy, out of harm's way. He vowed to destroy Hamas after the unprecedented attack of this Palestinian Islamist movement on its soil on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza, and seeks to stop Hezbollah's rocket fire on its territory.
Before dawn, residents of Beirut woke up to the sound of large explosions, after Israeli strikes destroyed a residential building in the Basta district, causing a huge crater and killing at least 11 people, according to the Ministry of Health. .
“Screaming in terror”
“This is the first time I've woken up screaming in terror“, Salah, a father of two living in Basta, told AFP.
Strikes also targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold located near the international airport. In Chiyah, one of the targeted neighborhoods, a building was transformed into a smoking pile of stone and scrap metal. In Hadath, the bombed buildings caught fire.
In a statement, the Israeli army claimed to have targeted in the southern suburbs “Hezbollah command centers and other terrorist infrastructure“. Israel also bombarded localities in southern Lebanon, notably Khiam, which its troops are seeking to take to facilitate their progress in the region, according to the ANI agency.
Eight people, including four children, were also killed in an Israeli strike this Saturday in eastern Lebanon, the Lebanese Ministry of Health announced. “Israeli enemy strike on Chmestar killed eight people, including four children, and injured nine, four of them seriously“, indicated the ministry in a provisional report. The national information agency ANI specified that the attack “had killed a family including a mother and her four children“.
The agency further indicated that fierce fighting between Lebanese Hezbollah and the Israeli army is raging in the border town of Khiam, a “strategic door” in southern Lebanon, which Israel has been trying to seize for several days.
On September 30, the Israeli army launched a ground offensive in southern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold bordering northern Israel.
After a year of cross-border violence and after weakening Hamas in incessantly bombed Gaza, Israel moved the heart of the fighting to Lebanon by launching an intense bombing campaign on September 23 on Hezbollah strongholds. More than 3,640 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the Health Ministry, most since September 23.
Israel says it wants to keep Hezbollah away from the border areas of southern Lebanon to allow the return of some 60,000 residents of the north of the country displaced by rocket fire.
On Saturday, US Defense Minister Lloyd Austin reaffirmed that his country, Israel's main ally, was in favor of a “diplomatic solution in Lebanon“. He also called on Israel to “improve the terrible humanitarian situation” in the Gaza Strip, where the approximately 2.4 million inhabitants besieged by Israel for more than a year are threatened with famine according to the UN.
