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11-10-2024
BEIRUT: Thirty-two people have been martyred and 117 injured in Israeli air strikes on central Beirut on Thursday evening, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
Media reporters heard loud explosions echoing from the site of the strikes in Bachoura, a small Shia area in the capital. Rescuers were seen digging through rubble at the scene.
Ambulances rushed many injured to the American University hospital.
Unconfirmed media reports suggested the apparent target was Wafiq Safa, assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s brother-in-law and a high-ranking security official in the group. Hezbollah’s media office has not commented.
The Israeli strikes hit residential buildings in Bachoura’s two densely packed neighborhoods, Nweiri and Basta.
They came after two relatively calm days in the Lebanese capital, which has felt unusual after intensive strikes in recent weeks.
There was no warning beforehand, and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not commented.
This is the third time Israel has launched air strikes on the city outside of the southern suburb of Dahieh, where it has struck repeatedly, killing Hezbollah commanders and destroying munitions caches.
One woman outside the hospital, who did not want to be named, said she was in the building next-door to the blasts.
She said a building which was hit was entirely residential, and about four or five floors high. One of her relatives was being treated for head injuries.
The Beirut attack came hours after two Indonesian peacekeepers were injured in southern Lebanon when an Israeli tank fired at a watchtower, according to the UN.
An observation tower at a UN base in Naqoura was directly hit, causing the peacekeepers to fall, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) said in a statement.
Unifil is a peacekeeping mission created in 1978, monitoring hostilities and helping to ensure humanitarian access to civilians in southern Lebanon.
The UN said Israeli forces had “repeatedly hit” UN positions in the last 24 hours. Israeli soldiers are also accused of deliberately shooting at the cameras and lights at two other Unifil bases.
The IDF said its troops had fired from the area around the base after ordering members of the base to remain in “protected places”.
Both peacekeepers were not seriously injured but remain in hospital, the UN said, adding that deliberate attacks on its peacekeepers were a “grave violation of international law”.
In a separate incident, Israeli soldiers fired at a base in Naqoura, “hitting the entrance to the bunker where peacekeepers were sheltering, and damaging vehicles and a communications system,” the UN added.
An Israeli drone was also spotted flying above the bunker entrance.
Also in Naqoura, Hezbollah said it fired rockets at Israeli soldiers on the ground and used guided missiles to destroy a tank heading towards the area, leading to casualties.
There are now four divisions of Israeli soldiers fighting inside Lebanon as it continues its ground operations against Hezbollah, launched on 30 September.
A spokesperson for Unifil told media on Thursday the force was “alarmed” and “deeply concerned” by the Israeli army’s activity in the area where peacekeeping troops are based. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
