BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: An Israeli strike hit an apartment block in central Beirut on Wednesday, Lebanese authorities said, further widening Israeli attacks in the capital beyond the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs where heavy bombardment continued.
Israel launched an offensive against Iran-backed Hezbollah after it opened fire on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader at the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran. Israeli strikes have killed more than 600 people in Lebanon, and uprooted 800,000 more, Lebanese authorities say.
The Israeli military ordered reinforcements to the area bordering Lebanon including its elite Golani Brigade. Reuters reported on Tuesday that Hezbollah fighters were braced for the possibility of a full-scale Israeli invasion of the south.
Footage showed heavy damage to two floors of the apartment block in Beirut’s Aicha Bakkar neighbourhood, and smoke rising from the building. Four people were wounded in the strike, the Lebanese health ministry said.
The Israeli military did not comment on the strike.
“The sound was indescribable, the fear is indescribable. Enough is enough, enough. This is a nightmare, when will it end?” said Bassima Ramadan, a woman living across the street who was woken up by the strike around 5:30 a.m. (0330 GMT). It would mark the second Israeli strike in the heart of Beirut in four days. On Sunday, an Israeli strike hit a hotel in a seafront neighbourhood. Israel said that strike killed five senior members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, which established Hezbollah in 1982.
Israel kept up heavy strikes on the southern suburbs on Wednesday, sending towers of smoke billowing across the skyline.
Israel has ordered residents of the predominantly Shi’ite Muslim suburbs to leave, along with residents of a swathe of southern Lebanon and parts of the east - all areas where Hezbollah has a grip on security and political sway.
Over 100,000 people are in organised shelters, while others are staying with friends, family or are on the streets.
After fleeing her village in the south, Mariam Rida, 73, said she spent $110 for a night at a hotel, then three nights sleeping under a Beirut bridge and a few nights at a school-turned-shelter.
“I want to go back to my hometown. I’m afraid, I’m scared for myself. There are strikes here and there are strikes there, I’m confused about where to go,” said Rida.
Displaced people have struggled to reach shelters and once they do, they are living in “super rough conditions,” said Maureen Philippon, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Lebanon director.
Comments