Smoke rises after an Israeli air strike targeted an area in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut. AFP
The Israeli occupation army also extended displacement orders in southern Lebanon to areas below the Zahrani River, about 40 kilometres north of Israel, just before launching a fresh wave of strikes and warning of a wider war across the country.
AFPTV footage showed dark smoke rising over Bashoura, in central Beirut, a busy district near the city’s commercial centre and government offices. Thursday’s strike marked the fourth in central Beirut since the Israeli war on Lebanon began on 2 March. Israeli air raids have also repeatedly pummeled the city’s densely populated southern suburbs.
Since Israeli strikes began, more than 687 people have been killed, and more than 800,000 people have been displaced across the country, according to Lebanese authorities.
Displaced residents have been sleeping on streets or in tents across Beirut, including in Ramlet Al-Bayda, where some shelters were damaged by shrapnel.
Just a day earlier, an Israeli strike in Ramlet Al-Bayda, along Beirut’s seaside, killed 12 people and wounded 28, the Health Ministry said. An AFP correspondent at the scene reported damaged vehicles, bloodstains on the pavement, and areas sealed off by security forces.
A strike on a Lebanese University branch, the country’s only public higher education institution, killed the head of the Faculty of Sciences and another professor, the National News Agency reported. Strikes on Aramoun, south of Beirut, killed five people and wounded a child, the Health Ministry said.
Additional attacks have hit other regions, according to Al-Mayadeen TV. In southern Lebanon, Israeli occupation forces carried out a massacre in the town of Rukai in Sidon, killing eight people. Another strike in Ain Ebel, in the Bint Jbeil district, killed three members of the Lebanese Red Cross and civil defense teams.
Additional strikes targeted the towns of Tuffahta, Deir Kifa, and Al-Hanniyeh, as well as the Ma’raka junction near the entrance to Tyre. The town of Al-Taybeh was hit by more than 20 shells. Earlier in the Bekaa Valley, Israeli forces struck the town of Douris, south of Baalbek, and a building in Qasr Nabaa, Al-Mayadeen reported.
In response, Hezbollah said on Thursday that it had fired missiles at Israeli air defense systems near Caesarea, home to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence. The group also said it targeted an Israeli military intelligence base near Tel Aviv and another south of Haifa.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when Hezbollah attacked Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes. The escalation follows more than 16 months of near-daily Israeli strikes across Lebanon, which have repeatedly violated the November 2024 ceasefire that ended Israel’s previous war on the country.
Israel has also refused to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and continues to occupy several positions in the south.
Short link: