Israel strikes central Beirut in predawn attack, killing 15
A powerful Israeli air strike on central Beirut killed 15 people and wounded 63 before dawn on Saturday, bringing down a residential building and jolting residents awake across the Lebanese capital.
The attack destroyed an eight-storey building in the Basta al-Fawqa neighbourhood, resulting in a large number of casualties, Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) said. Footage aired on local media showed widespread destruction in the working-class area.
Israel deployed bunker buster bombs, designed to penetrate underground before detonating, leaving a large crater at the site. The smell of explosives lingered in Beirut for hours after the strike, residents reported. The blast occurred around 4am (2am GMT), with security sources saying that at least four to six bombs were dropped.
Search and rescue operations continued into the morning, with an excavator clearing rubble as people gathered around the site.
"The strike was so strong it felt like the building was about to fall on our heads," Samir, 60, who lives across the destroyed building, told AFP.
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He said he fled his home in the middle of the night with his wife and children.
Following the strike on Basta al-Fawqa, additional attacks targeted the city's southern suburbs, an area colloquially known as Dahiyeh, after Israel’s military issued warnings for residents to leave the area.
The Basta al-Fawqa strike was carried out without an "evacuation warning". It marked the fourth Israeli raid targeting an area in central Beirut this week, while the majority of attacks have been concentrated on Dahiyeh.
An Israeli strike on Sunday in the Ras al-Nabaa district of central Beirut killed Hezbollah's media relations chief, Mohammad Afif, and several of his colleagues. Hours later, another strike targeted an electronics store in the Mar Elias neighbourhood, killing three people.
On Monday, Israeli jets struck Zuqaq al-Blat, a neighbourhood located just a few hundred metres from downtown Beirut.
On Wednesday, Hezbollah's new leader, Naim Qassem, said the group would target central Tel Aviv in response to the strikes on Beirut.
''Israel attacked the heart of Beirut, so it should expect the response to happen in the centre of Tel Aviv. It must pay the price,'' he said.
Israeli strikes killed at least 62 people and wounded 111 across Lebanon on Thursday, bringing the toll since October 2023 to 3,645 dead and 15,355 wounded, according to Lebanon's health ministry.
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