BEIRUT: Israel stepped up air strikes on Beirut on Wednesday, killing at least 12 people and destroying a 10-storey building near the city centre in the third week of its war with Hezbollah, Lebanese authorities said. Indicating further escalation in southern Lebanon, the Israeli military said it would target bridges across the Litani River to prevent Hezbollah transferring fighters and weapons, and reiterated a warning for residents to leave the south. The Hezbollah-Israel conflict has become the deadliest spillover of the US-Israeli war on Iran since the Iran-backed group fired at Israel in support of Tehran on March 2, with more than 900 people killed in Lebanon and 1 million displaced.
Strikes rattled Beirut through the night and into morning, lighting up the sky over the southern suburbs, which have been heavily bombarded by Israel. The escalation in central Beirut, where Israel targeted four buildings in eight hours, followed what Hezbollah described as a large rocket attack against Israel late on Tuesday. Some 100 rockets were fired, Lebanese security sources said.
The Israeli military said preventative strikes had blunted the Hezbollah attack, and that it had completed an overnight wave of strikes targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon. The air strikes in Beirut hit buildings within walking distance of the downtown area that was rebuilt after the 1975-90 civil war and of the headquarters of the Lebanese government. The targeted districts are historically mixed neighbourhoods where large numbers of Shi'ite Muslims live and Shi'ite Hezbollah and its ally the Amal Movement hold political sway.
The Israeli military statement said it had "struck assets" of a Hezbollah-run financial institution, Al Qard Al Hassan, in Beirut, and that the Israeli navy had targeted Hezbollah militants in the city. It did not say exactly where. The Israeli military issued no warnings before the three other strikes, the first of which tore through several floors of a building in Zuqaq al Blat at around 1:30 a.m., and two floors of a building in nearby Basta around the same time. The fourth strike, around 8 am, destroyed a floor of a second building in Zuqaq al Blat. The Lebanese health ministry said the strikes killed 12 people and wounded 41. Israel struck the Bachoura and Zuqaq al Blat neighbourhoods last week. No fatalities have been reported in Israel from Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks.
The Israeli military says two of its soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon. In southern Lebanon, an Israeli strike hit a petrol station and another killed a town council member, state media said. Four people were killed in an air strike on the city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon. In the south, 10 people were killed in air strikes in three different locations, the state news agency reported, citing the health ministry.— Reuters
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